Before the Coffee Gets Cold was an instant staff favourite (and store bestseller) when it came out and it was such an honour to have my heart ripped out by Toshikazu Kawaguchi!! Absolutely perfect timing that just when it all healed up, the second book in the series would come out and yank the damn thing out again.

It was so nice to be back at Funiculi Funicula, I was sitting right there with them, which I think is the magic of this series - no explosions, car chases, deadly secrets etc, just us and our coffee. Turn your brain off and breathe!! I'm now aware that there's also a third book in the series which is yet to be translated so I'm just completely up and down emotionally at the moment.

Thank you so much for letting me read this, cannot wait to see this on the shelves :)

This is a follow up to the previous novel also titled Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and it sticks to the same premise. I read the first one, and really enjoyed the unique idea of a time travelling cafe and the lessons to be learned from doing so. It presents more as a collection of short stories, with different people going back to the past for various reasons. I like how each story provides an uplifting message about life and it’s challenges, and the people going through their own struggles in life require a little looking back to fully move forward to the future, and it’s interesting to see it presented in different scenarios.

However, my issues with this collection stems from the issues I had with the previous one: the writing isn’t great. It’s very clunky at times, and does a lot of telling. I’m not sure whether it’s a translation issue, or not, but it was distracting at times. If not, I did discover Kawaguchi is a playwright, which explains the need tell over show, so maybe it was the style. I can see this working much better as a play at times. It would be interesting to see a play version and to visualise the story in a unique way. Also, there is constant repetition going on, like how each person is told the rules in detail, but the reader has to go through it all again just to move on with the story. The flow was often disrupted by it.

I do believe the first collection was better, since it was new and intriguing, but if the first novel had you eager for more, then this is a great follow up. It’s a cosy read to help you pass a free evening, and gives you enough of a good and intriguing story to leave you satisfied.

What a beautiful set of stories and an arresting premise. Time travel stories can become cheesy, but this book is nuanced and soul-tugging - true chicken soup (or coffee) for the heart. The frame story about the cafe and its staff can be quite slow compared to the time-travel scenes, which had me wiping away tears.

This is one of those books that makes you glad to be a reader. Absolutely beautiful interlinking stories. Don't we all wish that we could sit in this supportive environment and go back in time? Who would you talk to? Amazingly touching!!

I didn’t really enjoy this book. The characters in the book were hard to relate to, which I found made it difficult to be too invested in the story. I like the idea of the book, but did feel slightly disappointed after reading it. My favourite part was actually the couple of sentences at the end.

In a little back alley in downtown Tokyo lies a small cafe and for the price of a cup of hot coffee you the customer can be transported back (or forward) in time. You may select this occasion to see a loved one, or revisit an event of your choosing. Told in the free flowing style reminiscent of such esteemed Japanese authors as Murakami and Ishiguro, Before the coffee get cold, is a delightful little story that will make you smile. Many thanks to the good people of netgalley for a gratis copy in exchange for an honest review and that is what I have written.

I loved the original Before the Coffee gets Cold. This is more of the same, but not quite as good, and I found it a little repetitive. Still, I love the quirky style and original concept. The translation keeps the Japanese feel and ways of speaking e.g. the way the little girl shouts and one character starts to cry and his tears form a puddle - straight out of an anime cartoon!

I really enjoyed the original book by this author, so I was intrigued when I saw there was a sequel. And really, in this case, it's just a continuation of the stories from before, so for anyone wanting 'more' after reading the first installment, this is the place to come.
It's a short book, again, and I'm half hoping there are more of these little stories to come, though perhaps the coffee shop time travelling is done for now! Once again, I enjoyed the unlikely science fiction, which reads easily. The stories are gentle, and often moving. The only thing I stumbled over a little was the translation, though since it was the same issue I had with the first book perhaps it isn't the translation and is just the author's style. It just feels a little stilted at times, and clumsy. But not so much that it's obstrusive, and I still very much enjoyed the stories and being able to visit the cafe again.
With thanks to NetGalley for my copy.

Oh my goodness, what to say about this gorgeous little book? I didn't think I could enjoy anything as much as I enjoyed Before the Coffee Gets Cold but this was a brilliantly crafted follow up and Kawaguchi is a master storyteller.

This follows a number of different visitors to the café and their travels through time. What I most enjoyed about this latest edition to the series was catching up with the original characters and being able to follow their stories that were woven in to each tale.

I cannot wait to reread this in the future and be transported back to this glorious story.

Thank you to Picador/Pan Mac and NetGalley for an early copy of Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café in exchange for an honest review.

I was not sure what to expect with this book, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Heartwarming and emotional in equal measure, it is a series of vignettes in which people who want to travel through time get the chance to do so, provided they follow the rules.
The book is gentle, and the translation from Japanese tasteful and subtle. The way the characters interact with the cafe proprietors is also cleverly done and the characters all grow from their interactions.
My only criticism is that the book wasn’t long enough. I wanted more.
Lovely.

Really good. It’s a translated book so I’m unsure how accurate it is. Japanese culture fascinates me so that side was interesting. The plot is brilliant. Time travel and human unrest. I loved it. There’s a prequel which I’ve just bought. You can still read this as a standalone. 4/5.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is definitely a marmite book - you'll hate it or love it. The story is undeniably charming, well structured and original. The issue is with the writing. Forget what you've been told about good writing - "don't jump point of view", "show, don't tell", "trust the intelligence of the reader" - all those rules are broken multiple times on every page. If you can tolerate that, and it was a struggle, you'll be rewarded with a beautiful story.

This is a beautifully written set of stories based in a cafe in Tokyo which has served coffee for one hundred years. The ambience is superbly crafted, the stories delightfully written and translated. The special attraction of this cafe is that a customer can go back, or forward, in time. That gives the person who grabs the right seat while the ghost is at the toilet a chance to revisit past mistakes, catch up with a loved one hurt by them, and move on. That is assuming the customer obeys the rules, an important one being drinking the coffee which must be served by a female relative of the owner and must be drunk before it goes cold. Otherwise, the customer will be uncomfortably rocketed back to the present. The Japanese style gives this book a huge attraction. The characters are interwoven and sensitively described. Its message? “Life, too, passes through difficult winters. But after any winter, spring will follow. Here, one spring had arrived.”. I recommend this as a delightful, emotional read.

This is a great short read about a café with the power to send patrons into the past or future. These individual stories of the patrons stand alone as powerful reminders of not taking life for granted and appreciating the ones we love, but these are delicately woven together with the stories of those who work in the café. It is not a punchy read, but instead the gentleness leaves you feeling thoughtful about life’s winding journey and has stayed with me longer after finishing. A delight. Thank you to NetGalley for the free advance e-book copy of the title.

The follow up to 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold' and another enjoyable read. The book revolves around the lives of the café owner & the interesting characters that come in to travel back (or forward) in time to meet up with loved ones - some alive, some dead. I enjoyed this sequel very much - the stories were all quite different yet the link of the café owners ties it all together neatly.

*An eARC of this book was kindly provided for review by @panmacmillan but all views are my own!* 🌟

I’m sure by now you’ve heard of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. But did you know there are two other books in the series? And did you know that one of them, Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe, is soon to be released as an English translation from the Japanese by @panmacmillan? 📖

As soon as I put down the first book in this series, I needed more. I was so sad to leave the beautiful characters behind, so when I found out there were more books, I was absolutely over the moon. Returning to the cafe Funiculi Funicula, we are brought back into the dreamy world of time travel, love, and loss. This book contains four more stories of people coming to the cafe to travel in time to face up to their past. There are many rules: whatever actions they take won’t change events, they cannot leave the seat they’re in...but most importantly, they must finish the coffee before it gets cold. ☕️

I’ve seen reviews saying these books are very repetitive, but personally I would say they are meditative in their rhythm. That’s part of why I love these books so much. There is comfort in their atmosphere and the chain of events. I also think these books are very stoic. Love and loss aren’t sugarcoated. The characters learn for themselves how to move on and find peace. 🧳

Something else I found out is that there is a Japanese film based on Before the Coffee Gets Cold! I need to find a way of watching it, because the visuals, particularly with the time travel, look stunning. 🎬

Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe will be released on 17th September by @panmacmillan.📚

PUBLISHER’S DESCRIPTION:

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?

NO SPOILERS

I really enjoyed the previous book from Kawaguchi (his debut novel, Before the Coffee Gets Cold) so was looking forward to reading these further tales of time travel with a difference; a difference which I liked but unfortunately, I did not enjoy this follow up book as much.

As before, each chapter stands alone as a short tale, introducing a new character whilst the stories of those which are constant develop , which I like, but these further tales lack the magic of the originals and frankly, to me, felt like a cheesy weekly television show. “Today from the café…!”

It is necessary for the reader to know the “rules” of this particular travel mode, as previously revealed and so they have been slipped in to the Further Tales for those who have not read the first book. But they have been slipped in clumsily. The writing is very simple; short words in short sentences, not unlike a child’s primer, and this actually slowed me down. It felt unnatural and the dialogue was painful so perhaps something has been lost in translation. In places it reads like a script, complete with stage directions and when I researched Kawaguchi I found he is primarily a playwright and original the tales are indeed adaptations of stage plays.

All that said, it whiled away a couple of hours with my feet up and a pot of coffee (what else?) and was a pleasant enough read, just a little disappointing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan/Picador for the advance copy of the book which I have voluntarily reviewed.

I requested this in error, as I believed it was a new edition of the previous book, which I did not have the chance to read. Saying that, I did read the first section and it was excellent. I quickly picked up on the concept, although I wish I had read the original first!

Very often sequels are nowhere as good as the first novel and leave you disappointed, but this is a nice exception! It is as warm and full of love and wisdom as the first novel. It makes us realise just how important it is to be plain happy and we don't need any reason for it. It is sad and positive, it makes you smile and cry.. but most importantly it helps to see life from a more positive perspective. It is so calm and so Japanese. Great!

My rating: 4.5/5

I had a pleasure of reading Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café’ almost immediately after finishing the first book, and it has been a wonderful experience to get lost into this story yet again.

The small café in Tokyo serves not only coffee but offers the customers a possibility to go back in time. Or to visit the future. But there are many rules for time travel. So many that most people don’t decide to do so, and those who do need to abide by the rules. Going back to the past won’t change the present, and they need to return to the present before the coffee gets cold. Similarly to the first Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s, those - and more - rules are repeated multiple times throughout the book, highlighting both their importance and the effect they have on those wishing to travel back in time (or to the future).

What I loved the most about ‘Tales from the Café’ is the fact that alongside new faces, new travellers, we meet or hear about those who have appeared in the first book. And it’s lovely to see how their stories continued and that many of them found their path and happy ending.

When I was reading ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’, I found myself getting more and more interested in those working in the café, not just the customers wishing to visit the past. Each of them had an interesting story to tell, and I was happy to get to know some of them better in ‘Tales from the Café’. I loved the portrayal of Nagare and Miki’s father-daughter relationship, little Miki always bringing so much joy to the café and those around her even in their moment of grief. Kazu’s story coming to a hopeful ending has also been a beautiful narrative.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Café’ has a beautiful, though slow at moments, narrative. Grief and hope resonate throughout the whole book as different characters visit the past and future to find their closures and the way to move on with their lives. It’s one of those books that stay in your mind for a long time.