• Published: 6 December 2015
• Pages: 211 (Paperback)
• Genre(s): Fiction, Magical Realism, Contemporary
• Series: Before the Coffee gets Cold #1

A small café in a back alley in Tokyo has been serving coffee for over a century. Despite it’s unassuming appearance, this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. However, this chance does not come without risks and those in need of the experience must decide if the opportunity is worth it.

This book feels very different to anything I have recently read/ reviewed. I initially started this because I was in the mood for a shorter, more introspective book and I was not disappointed. Before the Coffee gets Cold is filled with both emotional and healing moments, showing loss and how love and human connection are the true meaning of life.

“It is much easier to conceal sadness from a stranger”

Language, Loss, and Love…

• I enjoyed the time travel aspect; I found it really interesting how intricate and somewhat non-sensical rules can lead people to become averse to the opportunity. While the idea of time travel and the repercussions of it – both positive and negative – is not new, this spin on it made the concept feel fresh.
• I enjoyed the mystery of the entire story and how the café itself became an almost physical entity – through this, the café felt like a character in its own right, aging and contributing to the story just as much as the other characters.
• Each story made me connect with the characters and their individual ‘lives’. While it did take me a while to get into the book, as it felt very slow moving, the emotion within each story was potent.
• I love how this book shows ‘to be loved is to be known’ in each story, how despite mistakes the characters make or ideas they may have about themselves, they each travel in time to learn that they are known and loved by those they wish to meet in the confines of the café.
• As I mentioned, I did find it difficult at the start of the book to really immerse myself in the world of the novel. I think this may be because of the language within the book, as well as the slow pace of the story. I find that with translated novels, there are often moments where I can tell there is a reference that only makes sense within the vernacular of the original language and cannot be accurately translated – this can also be said for jokes, expressions etc. This is no fault of the translator or the actual ‘translated language novel’ as a whole, but it needs to be said, particularly with this genre of novel where the ideology presented is more important than the material included within the text.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I rated Before the Coffee gets Cold 3.75 stars as I had some minor issues with it, but altogether thought that it was a beautifully emotional novel that presented the reader with stories of everyday people and how their connections with others allowed them to overcome and deal with struggles in their personal lives. I also loved the dialogue on grief and loss, and how despite this lack of control in our circumstances, we can control our perspective on the hand we’ve been dealt.

Song: Dark Signs by Sleep Token