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

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I find the characters not as engaging and interesting even though their stories sound interesting enough. Maybe their stories do not do much for me personally.

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! Before the Coffee Gets Cold resists neat genre classification. The tags of fantasy, translated fiction, novel, play and realism all seem applicable. Kawaguchi’s novel was originally written as a play before it was adapted into novel form. Despite a tantalizing premise the execution of time travel with ever added on new rules is sloppy. And the underlying morale of the four stories is basically highly conservative in my opinion.

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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. Mechanically, from a storytelling and writing point of view, Before the Coffee Gets Cold needs a complete overhaul. 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. 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. Meet more wonderful characters in the next captivating novel in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Before We Say Goodbye , releasing November 14, 2023!

Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold. 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: On the hillside of Mount Hakodate in northern Japan, Cafe Donna Donna is fabled for its dazzling views of Hakodate port. But that’s not all. Like the charming Tokyo cafe Funiculi Funicula, Cafe Donna Donna offers its customers the extraordinary experience of travelling through time.Perhaps if I read the collection which preceded this, 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold', I would have appreciated or understood more about this book. Meet more wonderful characters in the next captivating novel in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Before We Say Goodbye, releasing November 14, 2023! The second story, Husband and Wife, was much more promising, and it did end up making me cry. It was incredibly moving, and I will remember it for a long time into the future. The coffee-making process is described with considerable sensory detail. If Benjamin Obler updated his 2009 list of the ‘top ten fictional coffee scenes’ for the Guardian then Before the Coffee Gets Cold would easily make the cut. This time we follow a man wanting to visit an old friend who died in a car crash 22 years ago, a detective wanting to give his wife the birthday gift he was never able to give, a son wanting to see his departed mother one last time and a dying man wanting to see the girl he could never marry. Connecting them all are the staff of the cafe, a small family unit in themselves.

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. Apparently, this book was written as a play first, which could explain why so much of it feels so over-explained and bluntly delivered. Much of what I found annoying could fill a role as stage directions in a performance piece, but it really jars in a novel. The fact that there time travellers must abide by a number of rules gets mentioned maybe ten times in the first section of the book, and the rules themselves get repeated so often that they become mantra-like. Treat Your Shelf: Before the Coffee gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi". The Gryphon . Retrieved 2021-09-08.I hate (HATE!!!!) or "personally do not like books" where women die because of a pregnancy. Let alone for a pregnancy. Especially on purpose. Especially in books written by men. It’s just not my cup of tea.

In Alzheimer’s disease, the subtle and sporadic deterioration of patients brain function will be a very arduous phase in their partners, and their family members life, and it is one of the rare situations in Medical Science where the spouse and family members suffer more than the patient (The author depicted it perfectly through the characters Fusagi and Kohtake.)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. 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.