August 2022 Review of Before the Coffee gets Cold Book 2

Date-8.25.22

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

Written by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, 

Translated by Geoffrey Trousselot

About from Goodreads.com

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...

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes a story of four new customers each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Cafe Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer.

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?

Review

    As this is the second book in the series there might be spoilers. You have been warned. 

    This is the second book of Kawaguchi’s series Before the Coffee gets Cold. Again this book was beautifully bittersweet, I do enjoy it once in a while. Kawaguchi has a beautiful way of writing bittersweet books that make you smile and tear up at the same time. Another thing I enjoyed and really surprised me was that the ghost called Lady in the Dress is Kazu’s mother.

    Now onto things I really like. I felt as if I was reading pretty much the exact book, it was pretty repetitive, even though I did still enjoy it for the most part. I just felt that a second book wasn’t really needed even though I really wanted to read the second book, I guess I was expecting more growth of the characters, which there wasn’t any that I noticed, other than Kazu becoming pregnant. The third issue I had was with Miki. I found her to be annoying even though she acted like a normal child.

    I give this book a 3 out of 5, because I did enjoy this story. It was too repetitive and there was no character growth.

   

Enjoyed

• These stories are also bittersweet, they have me smiling and tearing up.

• Super surprised when we find out who the lady in the dress is.

• Still enjoyed the story even though it felt kind of repetitive 

Disliked

• Book felt pretty much the same as the first. A second book wasn’t needed. I don’t know what I was expecting for something to change, but it felt like I was reading the first book again.

• There wasn’t any character growth.

• I found Miki to be annoying. I know she’s a kid and was doing kid things but it was getting really annoying.

Quotes I love

• yes, you can return to the past, but why not come inside first before deciding whether to go or not- Short story 1 The Best Friends

• “Chirping throughout the long autumn night. Oh, what fun to hear this insect symphony!”- Kazu 

3/5 ⭐️

Info

Trigger warning-  NA

Spice level- 0 / 5 🌶

Numbers of pages-192 

Publish date- In Japanese - March 2017   

In English- September 2020

Awards-NA

Genres- Fantasy, Japanese Lit, Sci-fi,time travel