Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Novel (Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, 1)

This book took my by surprise. It's one that I read as a part of my monthly book club pick and I went into it with no idea what to expect. I truly loved getting to know the characters and slowly fell more obsessed with the atmosphere with the café. I found it a nice easy and pleasant read that gave me a bit of a breath of fresh air in my absolute fantasy streak!

Interesting concept but not without flaws- an ok read

CRANKY'S BOOK CLUB REVIEW OF BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD BY TOSHIKAZU KAWAGUCHI This book was eagerly anticipated by many of us in Cranky's Book Group. With an interesting premise, cool cover and intriguing cover notes, it promised to be a light, engaging summer read. Unfortunately, for many of us, it failed to deliver on several levels. The book's intriguing premise was that patrons of a cafe could travel back in time, within the cafe, to speak to anyone they wanted to, but only to a time when other person had visited the cafe, and that nothing would be altered by the encounter. The story is told through a very small cast of characters, including a ghost, so it was surprising how unmemorable many of us found the characters and how hard many of us found it to engage with the story. The various personal stories were tragic in content but again, left many of us surprisingly unmoved. One of us was turned off by the relentless tragic tone and wondered whether the book would be quite triggering for someone coping with bereavement. Another of us remarked on the strange choices the characters made: a talented woman only wanting to find out about her boyfriend, and a woman giving up her successful business to live a life she would never have chosen for herself. We discussed why we were so disconnected from this story. The translation from Japanese was agreed to have contributed, with differences in literary conventions between cultures proving to be a bit jarring. The story was also very repetitive in parts, particularly regarding the rules of time travel in the cafe, which several of us found quite off-putting. A factor that almost certainly played a role was that the story was initially a play, which had been re-written into a novel format. We all agreed that the story was far better suited to a play format, with its sparse cast of characters, its highly visual nature and its episodic story structure. Although in the minority, several of us really enjoyed the book. One of us remarked that it was an easy, undemanding read and that she had enjoyed the premise of travel to the past where the only resulting change is to yourself. Another of us remarked on how well the story would be translated by the anime filmmakers, Studio Ghibli. Another of us found the book's premise quite profound and the stories moving, particularly the story about the dying mother and the child. Something we all agreed on was that these stories would be better told in their original format, as a play. We gave the book an average score of 6/10.

One of my favourites Rn!

Beautiful and touching book about different kinds of grief.