Recently, I read a book named “Before The Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. What would you do if you could travel in time but only stay there until your coffee got cold? This story, which takes place in a cafe on one of the side streets of Tokyo, is very interesting. Funiculi Funicula has been serving for hundreds of years to their customers. This cafe is a very small cafe and it is located in a cold basement.
Cafe is famous for taking their customers back to the past and to the future. Unfortunately, not everyone who wants to can go to the past or future because there are some rules like; sitting on a specific chair and never being able to get up throughout the journey. But the thing is, there is only one chair that you can sit and this chair is reserved to a ghost that gets up from that chair once in a day. So you need to be really quick. Also the person you want to see must have visited this cafe before. While traveling in time, you must return before the coffee brewed for you gets cold, otherwise you may turn into a ghost that does not belong to any time. And there is a really important thing that, you can not change the past or the future.
In the book there are four short stories so, basically the characters are the ones in those stories. First story “Lovers” tells about a woman named Fumiko whose boyfriend Goro goes to America for work. Second “Husband and Wife” story tells a wife named Kohtake who can no longer remind herself to her husband Fusagi because he has Alzheimer’s disease. Third story “Sisters” tells a sister named Hirai who blames herself for her sister Kumi’s death. Lastly, fourth story “Mother and Child” tells a mother named Kei who wants to see her child Miki.
I really liked this book because the subject is unusual and the messages that the author gives through the characters in the stories are very good and impressive. The skillful connection of these stories impressed me too. I can also say that this book is one of the most fluent books I have ever read. The author’s narration was very fluent and the plot of the stories was not boring at all. I was very impressed that there were surprising parts in the book and the emotions were handled very sincerely. Although you do not have any trouble while understanding the emotions in the book, I think that the characters thoughts weren’t enough given, this may be the only negative aspect of the book. But if we evaluate it completely, I can say that everyone should read this book and I highly recommend it.
