Story Insights: Before the Coffee gets Cold
What would you change if you could go back in time?
I’ve had Before the Coffee Gets Cold sitting on my TBR list for almost a year. Once I visited Japan last summer, read a few books by Japanese authors and fell in love with the culture, I decided I needed to bump it up on my priority list. Returning home during a visit to my local bookstore, I happened to find it. This was a work that kept reappearing time and time again, begging to be read.
Book Summary:
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.
In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-traveling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.
But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
Considered Reads Summary:
This literary fiction read is filled with a hint of whimsy and multiple protagonists. Each of the four lives we focus on throughout the chapters has their own reason for desiring time travel - provided by a special chair found in a small Tokyo cafe, however there’s a catch: there are rules around choosing to time travel that can be life threatening and quite disappointing. They each must be presented with the rules of time travel and decide if it is still worth pursuing knowing what’s at stake. We get to know many different personalities, but there is an all encompassing prudence that is practiced from all main characters. Each individual learns that although solidifying their decision to travel doesn’t result in changing the future events, it will undeniably create inner peace for themselves and affect oncoming decisions.
Kawaguchi’s character building is emotionally moving as we watch each story unfold, realizing that internal narratives are oftentimes harsher or a touch off from reality. It will make you question your own narrative and leave you pondering your own decisions. A light, yet touching read.
Audience Match: Someone who might be questioning a major decision they’ve recently made, anyone who enjoys learning from different perspectives in life, or those who enjoy heartfelt, touching works. A bit sad, but a bit uplifting all in the same.
Quiet Question: The book quietly asks, how you are showing up in your current relationships and what can you change to improve those connections?
Mood: Somber, yet uplifting. The ending however, left me emotional.
Pacing: Slow
Our Rating: 3.75 of 5 - I wished for the pacing to be a bit faster so I didn’t become bored within the dialogue at times. Quality however, was there.
Favorite Quote:
“Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out. This is especially the case when you are trying to hide your sadness or vulnerability. It is much easier to conceal sadness from a stranger, or from someone you don’t trust.”
Comparable Titles:
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library - Michiko Aoyama
The Lantern of Lost Memories - Sanaka Hiiragi
The Midnight Library - Matt Haig
