Book Recommendation: Before the Coffee Gets Cold Book Series!

Posted On August 15, 2021

Hi Readers! In the past two days, I read Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s two books: Before the Coffee Gets Cold and its sequel Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café. I must say, I have enjoyed reading both these books. I had only ever read Haruki Murakami’s many books which were translated to English from Japanese. But, this time I was keen on exploring a different Japanese author’s books. I’m glad I decided to do that, because I truly loved reading both the Before the Coffee Gets Cold books!

~~GOODREADS DESCRIPTION~~

What would you change if you could go back in time?

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.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

~~RULES OF TIME TRAVEL~~

Basically, the idea behind these books is that you can travel through time to the past or future, but there are several rules which you need to follow. Because of the tedious rules & their application, most people don’t see the point of the time travel offered by the Funiculi Funicula Café. The rules are straightforward.

The First Rule: The only people one may meet while back in the past are those who have visited the cafe.

The Second Rule: No matter how hard one tries while in the past, one cannot change the present.

The Third Rule: In order to return to the past, you have to sit in that seat and that seat alone. There is always the woman in the dress aka the ghost sitting in that chair. If you try to sit there by force, she will put a curse on you.

The Fourth Rule: While back in the past, you must stay in the seat and never move from it. If you get up from that seat while in the past, you will be forcibly returned to the present.

The Fifth Rule: There is a time limit. You need to drink the coffee before it gets cold in order to return to the present.

There are a few more rules as well, but they are not as important, so you can catch on with them as you read these books.

~~BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD~~

While I read the first book, it was just a fun magical realism novel which was not so weird that there was nothing to it. It made sense. There were rules. It was fun to get to know all these multitude of characters, including the café staff & the regular customers. Because I wasn’t looking for something great, I just read it one page at a time. By the end of first book, I began to appreciate the masterful writing style at play. The way the four stories & chapters were interweaved to connect each with the other was wonderful to behold.

The most lovely message at the end of ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’, was that even if someone goes to the past or the future, nothing that they do will change the present. This was the main rule because of which the urban legend had called it pointless time travel. But, what we understand towards the end of the novel is that even if you can’t change the present, you can certainly change how a person feels. Whether it is a person who is traveling through time or the person they are going to meet. Because they decide to go to the past to convey maybe a small message or give a letter or a gift or simply to have a conversation, the only pure thing that changes are their feelings & perspective about life. It was a subtle message throughout the story, but only at the end did I actually understand it & I have loved to ponder over it.

We see a girlfriend go back to the past to meet his boyfriend. It doesn’t change the present, but for her it may have changed the future. We see a wife go back to visit her husband before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In this, we see how the wife’s perspective changes about the present situation to live more optimistically. We see two sisters, Hirai who travels back in time to visit her now dead sister Kumi. Even here the present doesn’t impact, but the future may just as well have impacted. All these are such perfectly curated & polished stories that you can’t help but fall in love with them.

~~BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD : TALES FROM THE CAFE~~

Usually, the sequels are disappointing because they don’t live up to the first original book. But, in this case, it gets a whole lot better! I loved the stories as well the message in this book as well. The reader is sent into a maze of stories where all your emotions come up to the surface & when you are out of the maze, you are a reformed person with a new perspective, and in this book, the new perspective is towards death.

We see a best friend going back to the past to meet his now dead best friend whose daughter he raised. We see a son return to the past to meet his now dead mother who he couldn’t meet before she died. We see a possibly going to be dead person meet his then lover in the future to see how her life turned out. We see a detective husband go to meet his now dead wife in the past 30 years ago just to give her a gift & have a conversation.

All these stories have death surrounded by them. So, either way, whether they meet them in the past or future, they know that the present won’t change. I think this is why this book has a much bigger message for the readers. The first takeaway for me was that even though the person was about to die, the person close to them went to meet them through time travel, mainly to just have a conversation. It’s so important, isn’t it? So many people regret not telling the people they love that they love them and then it’s too late. In this book, we see people leaving behind their own sense of security, pride & even happiness to meet the person they loved just so they could speak to them once more. I loved that about the stories in this book.

The second takeaway was a shift in my perspective about death. Death is an unavoidable part of life. And after someone close to us dies, we tear up & forget to live our life. In this book, the author has asked us to question ourselves at such times. Will the person who is now dead be happy to see you like this? Instead of crying over their death, wouldn’t it make more sense to celebrate the incredible lives they have lived? Because your baby only lived for 70 minutes, you are broken up about it. But, the baby was precious enough to have gotten those 70 minutes in the first place. So instead of taking someone’s long life for granted, shouldn’t you be happy about the life they got to live, even if for a short while? Wouldn’t they want you to be happy after they have left you? These questions would never stop if I continue writing them, but I am sure you get the overall picture. So, I guess, just live, be happy, value the people in your lives today & every day, don’t keep any space for regrets, love widely & truly with all your heart!

“If I had led a sad life as a result of my sister’s death, then it would have been as if her death had caused it. So, I thought I mustn’t allow that to happen. I swore to myself that I would make sure that I was happy. My joy would be the legacy of my sister’s life.“

~~BEFORE YOUR MEMORY FADES~~

I read Before Your Memory Fades almost two years after I read the first two books. It was so sweet to get back to this universe, kind of like returning home. The beauty and magic of the book hit me this time as well. In all of the stories, there is death involved. It’s either a person who has died who travels or for whom another person travels in time. And because death is such a sensitive topic, all the books are written with that sensitivity and ingenuity.

One of the key takeaways from this book is about how there are multiple perspectives of a particular situation or decision. We have two people whose parents couldn’t be around to raise them. One wanted to know why her parents had her and was full of angst. And another is simply thankful to her parents for letting her be born and was full of gratitude.

Your perspective and mindsets, whether they are positive or negative hugely impact your life. Another amazing lesson from this book is about seizing your happiness! How deciding you want to change your life is just as important as your mindset and perspective towards your life. Things don’t magically change just by hoping and wishing. You have to work at it and transform your life!

And what I loved the most about the book is how one person can change your whole outlook on life. This one person who means the world to you is no longer alive. And, because they have died, there is nothing to live for, so you want to die too. But, before doing that you want to travel in time to the past to meet your beloved person one last time. But, when you meet them, you are told to not give up on your life and live your to the fullest because that’s what they would want for you.

All these messages are just so subtle and touch you deeply. They are relatable and despite the time travel factor, it’s just so raw and makes you think about how you are living your life and the changes that you might want to make to feel more connected to your loved ones.

~~BEFORE WE SAY GOODBYE~~

Before We Say Goodbye is the fourth installation in the ‘Before Your Coffee Gets Cold’ book series. Japanese books have become my comfort place over the years. I read through them pretty quickly and always have a warm feeling when I am with them. They feel like my safe space, and especially when it’s a series, it’s like going home. I have loved all the first three books a lot. They spark up a lot of feelings around love, happiness, choices and perspectives.

In this book, I saw a lot of stories revolving around death, grief, regrets and second chances. A man who was always away on business and couldn’t be a good husband and father returns to the past to meet his family. A woman who fell asleep next to her dog when he died felt that she wasn’t there for him during his final moments returns to the past to be with her dog one last time. A woman who declines her boyfriend’s proposal because she thinks she could do better only for him to die a few months later returns to the past to attempt to accept the proposal. A daughter who loses her father regrets not speaking to him kindly when they had their last conversation wants to go back to the past to fix her attitude and have a pleasant chat with him.

All these stories had a tenderness to them and were written with many sentiments at play. Regrets and second chances is usually something I get very emotional reading about. Perhaps, that’s why I had higher than usual expectations. Unfortunately, during the entirety of the novel, I felt devoid of emotions during my reading journey. I could sense it in the characters, but it felt only on the surface and never really ran as deep as I was expecting. This really bummed me out, because these books have always been a 4.5 or 5 star reads for me. There could be a tiny chance that I didn’t read it when I was in the right headspace. So, maybe when I re-read it some time later, it will be different. Anyhow, for now, I feel bitter sweet about it.

~~BEFORE WE FORGET KINDNESS~~

If I had to share in one sentence my thoughts of the fifth instalment in the ‘Before Your Coffee Gets Cold’ series, I’d say, ‘End the series before the warmth gets cold.’ I still remember when I read the first two books of the series two years ago. I was so impressed with the masterful writing where characters could travel in time and couldn’t change the past or future but could change how their loved ones felt. It was so wholesome where regrets or longing or shame or sadness changed into fulfilment or intimacy or pride or happiness. I have felt that this core feeling of feelings has decreased in Before We Say Goodbye and further more in Before We Forget Kindness.

We have four stories in this one as well. The Son is where the 7-year-old son goes to the past so he could stop himself from crying after his parents tell him they are separating. He wanted both of them to be happy. This was my least favorite story, because a child shouldn’t have to be an adult at such a young age. Perhaps it didn’t translate well, but what could have been endearing came across to me as careless. The Nameless Child was perhaps the strongest story of the bunch, where the wife whose husband dies when she was giving birth to her daughter, goes back to ask him to name their daughter. The Father was too long and repetitive. Father-daughter stories usually bring out some kind of emotion in me, but this one failed to do so. The Valentine was interesting, but I found the flawed character just flawed and not lovable.

Even when I tried hard to see the kindness in these stories, most of the times it eluded me. Given the nature of the time travel, I found that in almost all the stories the kindness was masked in selfishness. If you really had to put it under a magnifying glass, then the first two stories had a theme of kindness.

I have rated Before the Coffee Gets Cold at 4.5/5 stars, Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café at 5/5 stars, Before Your Memory Fades at 4.5/5 stars, Before We Say Goodbye at 3.5/5 and Before We Forget Kindness at 2.5/5 stars! The first three books are a solid recommendation from me. No matter what kind of writing you like to read, these are the books that everyone should read at least once!

Until next time,