Title: Before The Coffee Gets Cold
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated into English by Geoffrey Trousselot)
Year: 2019
Genre: Fantasy
Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi is about a small café in Tokyo that allows customers to travel back in time and asks the reader the question what they would do if they could travel back in time? The book was selected for my local book club read and the premise of the story being about time-travel was very interesting to me.
In the book we meet four different customers who all wish to travel back in time for very different reasons – with each customers experience being a complete chapter in length. From a woman who wants to confront her boyfriend for leaving her for a job in America, to another who wants to read a letter her husband had written for her before his mind was taken by Alzhiemer’s, to someone who wants to see their sister for one final time, and finally a mother who wants to meet the child they will never get the chance to know.
However, travelling in time comes with risks – they cannot leave the specific seat which they travel in and in order to return to the present they must drink their coffee before it gets cold.
The books premise is very quirky and reminded me of the recent movie Everything, Everywhere All At Once that starred Michelle Yeoh and the quirkiness definitely makes it an interesting read.
In the first story when we first learn about the café and it’s abilities to travel back in time Kazu who is the waitress there gives a long list of rules which I did think would actually make the book quite uninteresting and would suck the fun out of the story but in fact it makes each customers experience of travelling through time emotional and yet tension filled.
Kawaguchi’s writing is excellent in making each characters story feel unique and they all feel like real people who you could meet in any coffee shop, with their own stories, problems and motivations for wanting to go back and some of the stories left me in tears, especially the two sisters and the mother and child.
I also liked how Kawaguchi didn’t feel the need to explain the central mystery of what allows the customers to travel back in time, instead it is just allowed to exist and readers can make their own mind up on why it is the case which gives the book a magical, fantastical quality and the premise is simple but extremely effective.
I think my only main issue is the structure of the stories and the numbers of characters. The book does have a chart at the beginning which explains all the characters and their connections which was very useful and I found myself referring back to it constantly. However, whilst this may partially be down to the characters’ Japanese names I did struggle to remember who was who and having to go back and check did break the experience for me and I found myself forgetting who was who right the way through the story which does suggest there may have been too many characters at some points.
Also I would personally have preferred chapters within each of the four stories as they were very long to read in one sitting s they are at the moment.
However for a unique fantasy story which asks some very deep emotional questions and is probably one of the quirkiest premises I’ve read in a long time I would recommend giving this book a try.
