39th book of 2022
Second book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series
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…
Among some faces that will be familiar to readers of Kawaguchi’s previous novel, we will be introduced to:
The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago
The son who was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral
The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry
The old detective who never gave his wife that gift…
This beautiful, simple tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives. Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?
CW: Death, death of a parent, grief, suicidal thoughts, miscarriage, cancer
Rating
Review
I had a great time reading this book, but the book in itself was meh (minus) for me.
The main thing was the redundancy of the stories between the two books of this series. So you have the same construction, and only the characters change. The only problem is that they aren’t memorable; they are just okay. It’s the same for the location; it’s described way too many times and without changes.
I also was a little lost at some point as you have, at the same time, an external pov and omniscient one. The client will see the owners and their life, but at the same time, it’s like they are part of their family and know their problems. So I was pulled out my reading a lot during reading time.
The revelations done in this book are predictable, and I don’t feel like a book was needed to explain those things. That’s why I won’t read the last book of the series. I feel like I have finished the series, and the last one won’t add a ton to it.
Also, in my edition, I have a graphic with all the relationships between the characters that will appear in this book. First, it was hard to understand it initially as you don’t have a legend, and it’s quite a messy graphic. Second, it explains the book quickly and easily; it’s nearly as if you just need to understand the drawing, and you will know what happened in the book. Thanks for the spoilers!
Overall, I cried while reading the book, but it’s a book that makes you cry. However, I found it too repetitive and didn’t see the difference between the series’s first and the second book.
Liz.
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