Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Oshikazu Kawaguchi

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a novel written by Oshikazu Kawaguchi that I read recently. It follows the story of Fumiko, a woman in her twenties living in Tokyo. The story begins in a small local coffee shop that is not well known. Fumiko and her partner of 5 years named Goro unexpectedly come across it and go inside. It is there that Goro breaks the news that he’s moving to America because of his job. The conversation quickly intensifies to the point where they end up breaking up. Fumiko is devastated, as she had plans to marry him and wishes she could go back in time and change what happened. She then remembers hearing a local legend about the same coffee shop having the ability to send people back in time. Intrigued, she returns a week later and finds that the legend is true. However, a specific set of rules must be followed when traveling to the past. The most important rule being you must return to the present before your coffee gets cold.

I started reading this book after someone recommended it to me, and I think it’s a pretty good book. I was surprised when the book took a supernatural turn because I was not expecting it. I typically don’t like books with magic or made-up things, but I actually ended up enjoying this book. There were many plot twists in this book that kept me interested, such as all of the rules about time travel that were revealed.

Although there are some good aspects of this book, I also have a few negatives. For one, there was not much of an introduction to orient you. Instead, the author dove right into the story which caused me to not even know the name of the main character until a few chapters in. In addition to this, the writing was very straightforward which was unlike any other books I’ve read. There was nothing happening between the lines and everything happened in the span of about a week. That was the biggest downside for me because I feel like I wasn’t able to get to know the characters well enough due to the fact that the timespan was only a week long.

    Overall, I liked this book and was pleasantly surprised about how much I enjoyed reading a book with a supernatural plot. I would have liked it better if there was more of an introduction and the writing wasn’t as straightforward, but otherwise, I enjoyed it.

- Lena