Tales from the Cafe: 2 (Before the Coffee Gets Cold)

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everything" as in each woman Kawaguchi wrote only has one purpose in their life. should've done my research and seen that this book was written by a man. With faces both familiar and new, Tales from the Cafe follows the story of four patrons who visit to take advantage of café Funiculi Funicula's time-traveling offer and revisit moments with family, friends and lovers. Each one must face up to the past to move on with their lives. I've slowly grown to really like the staff at the cafe, and the endearing and complicated reasons people want to travel to a different time. Whether it's redemption, self reflection, guilt or just a need for some closure, every story is simply yet beautifully told, with every patron having a unique story to tell. The series really does have the potential to go on and on, with countless people visiting the cafe. This is quite a short book, so it’s hard to say much about it when trying to avoid spoilers, but yet again this book just filled my soul. I adored the atmosphere Kawaguchi created around the café, how he expanded on the lore of the café itself, as well as on the history of those who work there. On top of this beautiful exploration we are also introduced to new people and are absorbed into new tales. Throughout this book, whilst I was reading it I really felt a sense of peace, of beauty. I cried, as with the first one, when I finished reading it. It’s such a touching and well written plot. And I love the path that Kawaguchi went down for this book. The short novel arguably occupies a space known as ‘magic realism’ as Kawaguchi adds fantastical elements to the familiar space of the coffee shop. Before the Coffee Gets Cold also speaks to the modern fascination with time travel writing as popularised by H.G. Wells’ novel The Time Machine.

Tales from the Cafe is the second lot of short tales from Kawaguchi's 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold' series, which follows people on a journey into the past (or future) within a magical cafe. There are, as usual, an astounding number of strict rules to follow, but perhaps the most important to remember is to drink the coffee before it gets cold. Not to be mistaken, the concept is nice, but the execution sloppy. Also after the first story the newness of the premise starts to wear off (despite some arbitrary rule changes all of the sudden) and things like the weirdly specific descriptions of people, focussed solely on the colour of their clothes, started to catch my eye. despite the characters in this story being given a “second chance” to approach situations/people, the overwhelming feeling of knowing nothing can be done just hurts so badly, and i don’t want to delve any deeper into that, considering it would spoil way too much, but it sits in my chest, and it feels SO heavy. it felt so real, and being faced with reality sometimes feels a little too overwhelming, but as i mentioned before, the manner in which the author approaches this is so soft and so gentle. i felt safe Who wouldn’t want to time travel? Well, you probably wouldn’t if you had to follow these very precise, arbitrary and convoluted rules - yes, even more so than the usual! So the characters in this story can time travel but only to the relatively recent past and they have to sit in a specific seat at a specific table - which they can’t leave once they time travel, which means they can’t leave the cafe - and only for the duration it takes for a coffee to cool, after which you have to drink it down or else risk turning into a ghost forever burdened to haunt the cafe. Also nothing you do in the past can alter the present/future. Yay, so much whimsical fun…

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If it is not possible to change the present no matter how hard you try while in the past, then why bother?” As for repetitive, the book, while a novel, is in many ways really just four short stories that are essentially variations of the same set up and (to a degree at least) the same conclusion. When looking up the author I discovered that he was a play writer, which does not surprise me in the slightest. The book really is a play in novel format down to the entire book taking place in the same room (one of the time travel rules is that you can't leave your seat). The changes in the café are satisfying.While reading this book,you will feel that you are a part of the character’s happiness and sorrow.Kazu’s life is more elaborately depicted here too. However, I am so glad I was able to read the second book the third time I tried reading it. I would say the writing is more accessible and well etched out than the first. The intriguing characters are all female and charismatic in their own way — we meet Fumiko Kiyokawa, a businesswoman who wants to redo a conversation with her boyfriend before he leaves for the States. Kohtake, a nurse longing to meet her husband before his Alzheimers’ deteriorated and he no longer remembers her; Hirai, who wishes to tell her little sister her regrets for shunning her and Kei, who wishes to travel to the future to see if her unborn child had a chance to live. Their narratives are delicately woven together to produce a tale of love, loss, and hope that is sure to bring a few tears to your eyes.

But then...a severe damper arrives. My parade is rained on. Stormy weather comin' in. Insert other precipitation metaphors. The main thing I was hoping to see here was more insight in the previous characters narratives especially Kazu’s ,the cafe’s waitress who’s my absolute fav btw, and the woman in the dress’s which we got. and oh was kazu’s a heart wrenching one. I literally had a lump in my throat every time it came to her, I just wanted to give her a hug.don't mind me, just adding more and more books to my currently reading because all of my library loans are coming in at once and making me into a juggler except with books. From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafe comes another story of four new customers, each of whom is hoping to take advantage of the cafe's time-travelling offer. Among some familiar faces from Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s previous novels, readers will also be introduced to: This one has pretty much the same tone as the first one as it extends the story of some of the previous characters while telling four new tales. It’s very well paced, keeps you riveted to the book the whole time and I love the way the writing feels like you’re constantly solving a puzzle. Kawaguchi offers a surface level exploration of the emotional lives of his time travellers. However, the novel delves deeper into the ceremony of coffee making. The cafe has a rich history as it first opened its doors in the late 19th century. Nagare uses a variety of coffee brewing methods including the ‘siphon method’ and the ‘hand-drip style’. The first story feels so old fashioned, with a girl crying over being left by a guy and this just continues. I mean the geek boyfriend of a stunningly beautiful girl gets a job in the US (with a game studio of all things) and then his career is in her mind suddenly more accomplished than hers? She works in medical engineering for a listed firm; she is a manager and can supposedly speak 6 languages, but can’t even normally articulate her needs and opinion to him apparently? And then she realizes that happiness lies on waiting for her non-communicative boyfriend to return. The end.

Life in Japan on the strength of this novel seems even stranger than I had imagined, even after learning about Godzilla, apparently if you are working for a friend in their small business and they die, you can just take over the business, and raise their child as your own and nobody will complain or cause you any problems, not the law, the banks, or even any grandparents. Time travel, as facilitated by the cafe, is possible but under strict rules and limitations at the center of which (contrary to popular belief influenced by movies and novels) is : “There is nothing you can do while in the past that will change the present.” What We Are Reading Today: Before the Coffee Gets Cold". Arab News. 2023-05-30 . Retrieved 2023-09-23. With a tear rolling down the cheeks* I'll wait for you/Ifulfill your dying wish/fulfill the wishes you don't even effing remember In 2018, the novel was adapted into the film Cafe Funiculi Funicula, starring Kasumi Arimura. [8] [9]I really wanted to love this especially after reading another Japanese book recently, Four Seasons in Japan, but Before The Coffee Gets Cold wasn’t my cup of tea. Why is a gynecologist's clinic a woman's domain, to be untouched by a man? Is it too unmanly to hold your DYING wife's hands when she's carrying your child? My guy refuses to even go the gynec's appointment with his wife! But there are literally two paragraphs before that exactly describe how the character feels and what's she feels and why she feels that way. Overall I have enjoyed the two books in this series, hopefully if there is a third book the author can just say "the rules were explained" rather than listing them out one by one every single time.

Now, those two complaints aside... honestly, I kind of liked it. This is by no means a great novel, but I found the time travel rules fairly amusing (and frustrating, but it kind of delighted me in that regard as well). Also, I liked the character of Kazu. As a former barista I delighted in her character. A customer comes in and pisses off a ghost and gets herself cursed? Well, offer the ghost some coffee. The ghost is just an annoyance and the customer should have been focusing on the coffee and leaving the ghost alone anyway (This really is how 90% of baristas who work the night crew would act, I assure you. You did something stupid, we would note it for future stories and possibly even post a snarky sign telling customers not to do the stupid thing again). The rules of the time travel are clearly laid out in the book. Kazu oversees the magical activity, running through the travel guidelines before each customer begins their journey.One issue as with the first book is that the author seems to think the readers have short term memory and tends to remind us time and again about the rules of the cafe. The author beautifully told us how to face the death of our loved ones in this book by convincing us to stay happy and always keep on smiling so that the person who died can see us happy from the dark box (The author compares death to a dark box in this novel) to make him/her also happy. Why can life be fulfilled only by running the family inn you hated for 15 years, after your siblings death. Seems more like guilt than actually finding happiness to me. I was at Schuler’s bookstore for the first time and thought Before The Coffee Gets Cold would be a great little book to read while I was spending all day in the coffee shop attached to the bookstore. We can never truly see into the hearts of others. When people get lost in their own worries, they can be blind to the feelings of those most important to them.”