The coffee served in this café sounds like the most delicious coffee. The description of the sweltering temperature outside of the café actually made me feel too hot so I started fanning myself.

I adored this book and all of the characters, including grumpy Nagare. It was fascinating learning the rules about being able to travel in time when sitting in ‘that’ chair. The chair that is occupied by a ghost lady wearing a white dress. I particularly liked Kohtake’s visit to see Fusagi when he still recognised her, before the Alzheimer’s had taken hold.

I’m not a fan of short stories and at first thought that’s what this book was. However, it’s not. It’s all about the café, the same people, just their time travel.

I did have a little tear whilst reading and I’ve certainly thought about the book since finishing. I know it is one that I won’t forget...just don’t let the coffee get cold!

I rate this book book 5 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

I loved this book. This is a beautifully written story that had me totally captivated. It is about love and family as well as time travel. It is a gem of a book that is definitely worth reading.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

This is a very cute book with an original theme. A cafe that allows you to venture into your past as long as you adhere to certain rules, which seem a little bizarre but amusing as well. We meet lots of characters who are desperate to return to their past for various reasons, all of them worthy, with an assortment of results. I did find the Japanese names a little challenging at first and had to concentrate to make sure that I didn't mix up the various people. I'm still not sure why the school girl appeared and wanted a photo taken. It's a lovely read, very gentle and entertaining but non the less there are some life lessons to be learnt here in the power of love, understanding, forgiveness and compassion.

This is four short stories (rather than one continuous story, you do see character cross over but they are ultimately separate stories) about people desire to go back to the past. At a little café you get the chance to do so by sitting in a particular chair drinking coffee (while its hot!)

It is a lovely idea and the stories are quick and easy to read but I felt that there was a lot of unnecessary page filler and I'm wondering if this is down to translation.

The concept was interesting and the execution was partly charming. However, the characters were sketchy and stereotypical, the plot repetitive and predictable, the slang was too American sounding in translation, and it was all too sentimental.

Where to start ... Once in a while a little gem comes along !
This book grabbed me with the time travel theme -which is one of my favourite genres. . However the first couple of chapters were a bit of a struggle -. this may have to do with the translation from Japanese. I felt I was reading the author's notes rather than a novel -then I was trying to remember the names of the characters rather than pay attention to the story .- Then it all came together and I absolutely loved it .
The whole story is set in a coffee shop in Japan and if you sit in a certain chair at a certain time ---you can go backwards or forwards in time -although there are rules .-one of which is that you have to return before your coffee gets cold -or there are consequences - and another -that you will never change the present -so why bother at all ?
We then hear 4 different tales of characters who want to go to a different time in their lives. and the effect it has when they return .
This reminded me a little of Audrey Niffenegger novels -a bit bonkers -a bit different -but a fabulous read.

Thankyou NetGalley for an ARC for an honest review

This was a heart-warming little Japanese novella with an interesting concept about time travel in a Japanese café. From the first story, I thought it was quite good – took me a little time to get used to the Japanese names – especially as most of them seem to begin with the letter ‘k’. I initially thought it was four random stories, but as I read the second and third stories, I realised that they were all interwoven into each other with the same characters. As the stories developed, they became more beautiful and endearing and really captured my attention. It’s delightful, charming and poignant. A really lovely book.

**Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review**

Reading the blurb - time-travelling coffee shop - I was expecting a faster-paced book and so it took me a little while to settle into this book. I became charmed by it's slow and careful story and ended up enjoying it.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a great novel which gives the characters the chance to redo their past mistakes as well as the 'what ifs'. I really enjoyed the concept and liked how going back to the past doesn't change the present, but the characters themselves were able to change their futures. It teaches how you can only learn and grow from your mistakes. Bearing that in mind, the chance to go back and do something differently from what you had previously done, already shows they know where they went wrong and have faced the consequences of their mistakes. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone as it is a short read and everyone wants the chance to go back and correct a mistake from their past.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and finished it in 3 days! If you enjoy Japanese fiction and authors like Haruki Murakami you are sure to enjoy this.

Four beautiful little stories about traveling through time. You can't change present, maybe not even future, but you can change yourself. You can change your attitude and way of life. Book send this positive and warm message. It is so atmospheric that you can smell those mocha beans and start to crave a cup of coffee.. It's very light to read, but in the meantime it is full of meaning. GREAT!

I have a rather varied mix of feelings about this book, so let’s tackle everything in order:
1) Cover. Attractive picture, but doesn’t match the book. Don’t put a cat on the cover if a cat isn’t ever mentioned in the story. It would look better in sepia tones (in fact, the Japanese book cover is exactly that: the same picture but sepia, and with no cat) with a ceiling fan and three clocks on the wall, all showing different times. Maybe even a wisp of steam rising from a coffee cup. These are all important elements in the book that would be worth reflecting on the cover.
2) First page. And by that I mean the copyright page. Intriguing to see the translation is copyright the publisher, not the translator. I can only hope Geoffrey Trousselot was suitably compensated for surrendering his copyright.
3) Literary style. On the whole, this is great, and Geoffrey Trousselot has done a skilful job of rendering the delights of this story into English. However, it needs a final editor’s eye, as it suffers a little bit here and there from translatorese: we all do it – get so bound up in the turn of phrase in the original language that we convince ourselves it sounds good in English too. It could also do with a little editing for the target readership. For example, I’m not entirely sure why the author suddenly digresses into an idiot’s guide to the progression of Alzheimer’s – it simply made me wonder whether dementia is far less well understood in Japan than other parts of the world. That said, this is an ARC after all, so I’m assuming (hoping) that there’s a final edit and proofreading to go yet.
4) Story. Now to the good bit. A wonderful, subtle, gentle window onto Japanese culture and manners. Four achingly poignant tales of love, loss, and revisiting the past. You would wonder how any kind of story could evolve out of the stringent rules the author imposes in this time-travelling scenario (you can only move to another point in time within the café, you can’t even leave your seat, and however differently you may handle the revisited moment, NOTHING will change in the present). But each of these brief trips is the key to the time traveller herself making a fleeting connection with someone lost, reconciling herself to that moment, and gaining a deeper peace and understanding of how to move forward into her future life.
The lyrical storytelling deserves five stars. I’m hoping the other niggles will be ironed out before publication to do the story justice.

A sweet quick read, translated from the Japanese, which I really enjoyed.

In one seat of a little backstreet cafe, the coffee drinker can travel through time - but must drink their coffee and return before the coffee goes cold.

Four stories make up this book - all exploring personal relationships, and all creating an intimate atmosphere. The characters are beautiful, the setting atmospheric, and the stories thought provoking. Inevitably you will end up trying to decide on your own moment that you would travel to.

I really enjoyed this book. It was quirky and very distinctly Japanese. I can see it being turned into an anime.

The story is about an old cafe in Tokyo, which has a 'magical' seat which can transport the person seated in it into the past.

There are a number of rules which must be followed such as in the past they cannot leave the seat and can only meet people who are in the cafe, and the most important being they have to finish their cup of coffee before it goes cold.

The book follows the moving stories of a number of cafe patrons, who for different reasons wanted to go into the past.

The only negative thing about the book was the names - most of them began with K and it was difficult for me to cement who each character was in my mind - but a bit of flicking back through the book helped to solve this.

I really heart warming book.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book is about a cafe in Tokyo that allows you to travel back in time but only for the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee before it gets cold. We follow four different characters, each with their own reasons for going back. It was quite a moving book which really makes you think.

I love Japanese literature. I love all of Picador's cat-related Japanese stories. This seemed like a perfect thing to read.

It was.

Time travel can be messy, but Kawaguchi imposes a strict set of rules that prevent any complications. Let's be clear, this book isn't about time travel, it's about closure. When our characters sit down with a cup of coffee they can't affect the past, only experience it. This gives them an opportunity to close the door on a part of their lives they are hung up about.

This is Japanese literature at it's finest. Commentary on the human condition and how we strive to live the best life we can in the face of adversity. Hoping the relationships we form will matter in some way.

On top of that the characters were well written and we learn enough about them to care just enough when they themselves travel in time.

Now I need to find the movie! I'll definitely be buying the book to include in my ever-growing set of these books

@jake_reads_books on Instagram

5 out of 5 Stars ✯✯✯✯✯

About the book
The entire story takes place in a coffee shop, Funiculi Funicula. From the description, this seems like an ordinary coffee shop – a few tables with a few customers, and a counter behind which members of staff prepare and serve coffee. In fact, the only things which appear to be out of the ordinary are the three clocks, all of which show different times (only the middle clock tells the correct time), and the constantly cool temperature, despite only a ceiling fan to regulate the temperature.

However, as the story develops, we learn that this is not an ordinary coffee shop. This coffee shop allows people to travel in time!… But there are some rules. In most books and films involving time travel, the first rule would usually be to not interfere with acts which happened in the past – this could cause irreparable damage. The first rule of time travel from this coffee shop, however, is that the present, no matter how hard you try, cannot be changed.

Altogether, the rules are:

The present cannot be changed (not that this is prohibited. Rather, that it is impossible to change the present);
You must sit in a certain seat (this seat is usually taken up by a ghost, who cannot be forcibly moved – but she does move once a day to use the toilet) and you cannot move from this seat or you will return to the present;
Because of Rule 2 above, you can only travel back (or forward) in time to meet someone who has visited (or will visit) the coffee shop;
You can only time travel once;
There is a time limit – to travel in time, you will be poured a cup of coffee. You must finish this coffee before it gets cold, otherwise you must take the place of the ghost (referred to in Rule 2 above).
Given the very strict rules, the number of scenarios in which you would want to time travel would appear to be very limited. The book, however, is split into 4 parts, each part providing a different person’s story in which they choose to travel back (or forward) in time.

Story 1
This is the story of Fumiko Kiyokawa, a career-driven woman who was in a relationship with Goro Katada, and was hoping that he would propose to her. Instead, however, he announced that he would be moving to America for work, and rushed off to the airport.

Fumiko hopes to go back in time to convince him to stay – despite her hopes being dashed by Rule 1, she is determine to give it a shot.

Story 2
This is the story of Kohtake whose husband, Fusagi, has developed Alzheimer’s. During the first story, we could see how Fusagi’s Alzheimer’s was affecting him. By Story 2, however, he can no longer recognise his wife – though he remembers that he has a wife and has an envelope containing a letter he wishes to give to her, if he can find her.

Kohtake wishes to go back to a time when Fusagi still recognises her, and find out what was written in that letter.

Story 3
This is a story of two sisters, Hirai and Kumi. Hirai, being the big sister, was destined to run the inn owned by her parents. Hirai, however, had other plans. She instead left home, and Kumi took over Hirai’s responsibilities in relation to the inn. Since Hirai left, Kumi had often asked Hirai to return home to the inn. At first, Hirai would listen to her requests patiently, before making it clear that she will not return home. But as the requests continued, Hirai grew weary, and started avoiding Kumi altogether. Until, one day, Kumi died in a car accident.

Hirai feels guilty. She feels that the accident was her fault – and her parents seem to think this too – and wishes to go back in time. She wants to tell Kumi how sorry she is for avoiding her all these years, and to see her face one last time.

Story 4
This is the story of Kei and her unborn child. Kei was born with a weak heart, and yet she is never seen without a smile on her face. She has been told, however, that because of her weak heart she is unlikely to survive the pregnancy, and there is no guarantee that the child will survive. This affects Kei’s mood – not because she herself might not make it, but because her child might not make it. And even if the child does make it, the only thing she will have given her child, is life.

Kei therefore wishes to travel to the future, to find out if her child survives and, if so, if they can forgive her for not being able to offer anything during their life.

My thoughts on the book – 5 out of 5 Stars ✯✯✯✯✯
Although, at times, the writing style was not the best, this was such a wonderful book that I was able to overlook the writing style. The book carried so much charm, while also being packed with emotion (as you can probably tell from the breakdown of the stories above, some of the stories are quite upsetting).

Given the rather strange rules to time-travelling in this coffee shop, it set a very interesting basis for the story and it was nice to see a different approach taken to time travel, which must have been difficult to do given the amount of books and films which involve time travel. I also appreciate the description of the coffee shop – the two things which seem unusual at first (the clocks and cool temperature), later seem to give the coffee shop a sense of timelessness. And the minor role the ghost plays through the stories is also a nice touch.

This was admittedly quite a short book, but this does not change the fact that I flew through the book because of how much I enjoyed it – once I got partway through a story, I just had to know how it ended. Therefore, despite the writing style not being to my taste at times, I still loved this book and all the charm and emotion it carried. This is a great example to show that you don’t have to have the best quality of writing to be able to write a beautiful story.

The story itself, therefore, earns 5 stars for what is my first NetGalley review.

This book was a sad but interesting one. The concept of a time travelling cafe was quite cool and I was happy to see another Japanese translation. However, it fell a little flat for me.

Time travel gets given the Japanese treatment - there are uncompromising rules that govern time travel but they are never explained. As the title suggests, one of the rules is that the traveller has to return to the present before the coffee gets cold; another equally baffling one is that time travel is only possible from a certain chair that is only available when the ghost occupying it goes to the toilet. It’s a relief in some ways for the book to forgo technical explanations on the mechanics of time travel in favour of exploring its emotional effects on the travellers. Four characters travel in time, often out of regret and guilt for something undone or unsaid. Whilst yet another rule mandates that the present cannot be altered, it is the characters who are changed through these brief excursions into the past. I wasn’t always a fan of the writing style, but this is a sweet and heartwarming novel (which has been made into what looks like a sweet and heartwarming movie).

This is an interesting concept - a specific chair in a coffee shop that allows time travel, but with very stringent rules - in particular that your coffee must not get cold before your return, and whatever you do in the past cannot change the present.
For me it was mixed, parts are charming, but the writing style didn't engage me (this may be due to it being in translation) and parts were irritating.