Before The Coffee Gets Cold Before The Coffee Gets Cold Series #1 by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

4.3 (21)
$19.99

Product details

Web ID: 15525444

Now An LA Times Bestseller Over One Million Copies Sold an International Bestseller If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet? In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a cafe that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn't so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold. Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi's internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question- What would you change if you could travel back in time? Meet more wonderful characters in the sequel to Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Tales from the Café, and the third book in the series, Before Your Memory Fades, releasing November 15, 2022.

  • Product Features

    • Suggested age range- Adult
    • Format- Hardcover
    • Dimensions- 5. 5" W x 7. 1" H x 1" D
    • Genre- Fiction
    • Publisher: Hanover Square Press
    • Page count- 272
    • ISBN- 9781335430991
    • Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Author)
    • Publication Date: 11-17-2020
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Ratings & Reviews

4.3/5

21 star ratings & reviews

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21 days ago

6/5 ⭐️

this has been one of my favorite July reads. The raw emotion you feel while reading this has been unmatched.

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

3 months ago

It was alright

Honestly, I only continued to read this due to how short the book it was itself. I believe it might be a bit over hyped online. Due to the story because a bit flat… Overall, I didn’t really have any emotional attachment to any of the characters and it felt kinda eh… It was an okay short read, nothing really thought provoking nor tear jerking 🥲

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

10 months ago
from IL

Interestin concept,character-driven, introspective

Four bittersweet tales of love, family, and time travel are woven together to explore regrets and second chances. It’s mostly a character-driven, introspective tale which made the pace feel slow and the writing a bit repetitive. The stories and rules about time travel were interesting, but the last tale especially was a downer. Worth the listen but I likely won’t continue with the series.

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

11 months ago

Must read!

This book will grasp your attention and keep pulling you throughout the whole book. This novel is a must read, each chapter leaves you with a new life lesson and is very heart warming as well. My favorite novel so far!

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

12 months ago
from California

A Cozy Episodic Grief Narrative

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Kawaguchi Toshikazu is a third person multi-POV episodic Japanese contemporary magical realist novel. In a cafe in Tokyo, there’s a single chair that lets some go back in time for a little bit, but there are some strict rules. If you don’t finish drinking the coffee before it gets cold, you’ll become a ghost. What’s more, whatever happens in the past won’t change the present. The first story is between Fumiko and Goro, a recently separated romantic couple. Goro has gone to the US for three years in order to work towards his dream job of working for a specific video game company while Fumiko is still in Japan and waiting for him. Before Goro left, Fumiko didn’t say the things she wanted to, leading to Fumiko believing that they had broken up. She doesn’t want to let him go and is even thinking of him as someone she wants to spend the rest of her life with, so she decides to go back in time to the last time they spoke in the cafe. The next story really tugged at my heartstrings as it’s between Fusagi and Kohtake, a married couple where Kohtake has started to become more of a nurse for her husband, who has Alzheimer’s. Fusagi doesn’t appear to remember her and their marriage is not what it used to be, but he does keep an envelope on him at all times that Kohtake is convinced is for her. The cafe is owned by Kazu and married couple Fumiko and Goro. Fumiko is pregnant and concerned about her future because her chronic illness makes her pregnancy a risk to her and the child’s life. Negara, despite his misgivings, does not push her to choose her life over their child’s and respects her wants and needs. Kazu, meanwhile, is a bit cold and standoffish in how she talks to the customers of the shop, but she is ultimately quite compassionate and recognizes that people have a right to get answers. Content warning for mentions of death, Alzheimer’s, and pregnancy I would recommend this to fans of cozy fantasy with a bite who want something more akin to magical realism, fans of magical realism who like stories dealing with grief, and those looking for a magical coffee shop that is more episodic

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

1 year ago

must read

finished this book in one sitting, it has you hooked from start to finish. i love love love this book, i plan on getting the rest to finish the series. if you are looking for a quickish read i definitely recommend this book.

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

1 year ago

Got me back into reading

As an adult, I haven’t tried to read since almost middle school. I just lost interest in reading in general. This summer I wanted to give it a go, as I have been spending too much time online. On a whim I picked this book up in target because I liked the cover, and I discovered a new love for reading, but in new categories and types. This book seems quite simple, four short stories about different characters and their lives, but I found that it was in actuality, not that simple. When you reach in for a meaning, it is not hard to figure out that we all live this life too. And we must live our lives the way we want to, make amends, pay attention to our words and actions, and do it before our own coffee gets cold.

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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com

2 years ago
from Ohio

The past is yet to come

I loved this book. Given the rules of the time travel mechanics, this book is more about learning to grow and move on then changing the past. The main cast are all woman who are struggling to deal with one issue or another, and thanks to the time travel they are all able to find closer and peace with things that can not be undone. The main cast grows close thanks to their shared use of the time travel mechanic, and they all help each other to work through their individual challenges.

Recommends this product

Customer review from barnesandnoble.com