Book Review: Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

September 11, 2023

This is the first book I have completed from my autumn reading list and to say that it was a sweet start is an understatement. I absolutely adored this book and will recommend it to everyone. There are so many points of view in this story that everyone can find something to relate to.

At the beginning of this book I was not so sure about it. It reads very much like a play, and could easily be transformed into one. Everything takes place in one, rather small, space and a majority of the characters are the same throughout the entirety of the book. As I read more, and got engulfed in their stories, I fell in love with the idea of being able to see it in my head as a play on a stage. It was beautifully written ( and translated ) and is filled with a creative use of such a small space.

I will tell you, this review will give away bits of the story that you may want to read for yourself.

This book was a sweet and melancholy book about the importance of living in the moment and appreciating the people in one’s life. The book follows four stories that all take place in the same, magical, cafe. This cafe is not like any other cafes, it has the capability of traveling in time.

In the first story we meet a young women who has recently been broken up with by the man that she was intending to marry, because he was going to another country to work for his uncle. This had been a dream of his for a long time and the young women was fully aware that eventually this day would come, but she was not ready for the relationship to end because of it. In her story, we learn a little bit more about the cafe and the rules that are in place for the time travel. First rule is that you can travel in time but you cannot go anywhere other than the cafe. Second rule is that you cannot get up from the one seat that transports you in time. Third rule is that nothing that you say or do changes the outcome of the events – no matter what she and her boyfriend were going to break up. And the last rule is that you only have the amount of time that it take for the coffee to get cold ( hence the title of the novel ). She still decides to go back and tell him how she feels and her story is filled with joy and sorrow and longing and patience.

The next story is about a nurse and her husband. Her husband has early onset dementia and is slowly loosing memory of her, yet she continues to be in his life, not just as his nurse, but also as his wife. This is a beautiful story of persistence and love in spite of what life has thrown at her.

The third story is about a young woman and her sister. She feels she has abandoned, and disappointed, her sister time and time again and the weight of her neglect weighs on her in spite of her chipper attitude. This story touches on loss, family drama, disappointment and grief.

Lastly, we have a story about a mother and a daughter. This mother is ill and will, more than likely, never meet her child. She has a heart defect and the doctor has told her that she is likely to pass in birth, but she still wants to give life to her unborn child. She asks her friends if she can go into the future to meet the child who is barely four weeks old in her womb, and one of her friends complies. This story is sweet and sad as it touches on the daughters desire to meet her mother as well as not knowing how to interact with someone you share so much with but don’t know personally at all.

I will warn you, there is a lot of loss and death in this book, and I shed a lot of tears and plan on reading this book again.