“At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present doesn’t change.” – 3.25/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: romance books, ghosts, time traveling, photographs, letters, pregnancies, Alzheimer’s, a very specific set of rules and hot cups of coffee.

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.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

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?

Looking for a small, inspirational book? Then look no further, this one’s for you! “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” is a book written by a Japanese author, and it has a clear message for the reader: live in the present and focus on what’s in front of you because we can’t change the past and who knows what the future holds.
This story is about a café where you can go and time travel if you follow a strict set of rules:

1. Whatever you do, there’s no way you can change the present;

2. You can only interact with people who have visited the café;

3. You need to sit in a specific chair and you can’t leave it;

4. You need to return before the coffee gets cold.

Sounds interesting, right? The book is divided into four chapters, each one having one person time traveling trying to save a relationship (married couple, siblings, mother/daughter and boyfriend/girlfriend).
This book got me reflecting on my own life and what would make me want to time travel. While reading this book, you’ll find yourself thinking about what it would be like to go back and relive a moment from the past or what it would be like to peek into the future. Would you do it if you had the chance?
Keep in mind this is a fantasy book – more on the magical realism type of fantasy -, but I wouldn’t consider this science fiction though. I personally thought the time traveling element was okay, but it’s not something I usually look for in books.
With all that said, it’s not the most memorable book ever – which probably goes against what the book is trying to achieve. It’s a cute book with a nice message, but I didn’t think it was super special. Maybe this is more of a personal opinion, because I can see it being impactful for other readers.
I would say it’s probably a little overhyped, but still a nice book. It’s small, easy to read and you can definitely read it in one sitting!