Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

383 reviews

strewnsunlight's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness and Dementia

Moderate: Medical content, Death, Pregnancy, and Car accident

Minor: Grief and Alcoholism

jayvdw's review

emotional hopeful sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I am quite divided in my opinion on this book. The book follows four short stories, all in chronological order. This is also the reason why I find this book hard to rate. 

The first story is not that much of interest and is mainly used to explain the magic and set the tone of the book. This works fine, but overall is not that interesting. As a result, I went into this book with mixed feelings.

The third and second stories were by far my favorite. These truly made me tear up and I truly felt the emotions of the moment. The stories were also nicely set up already in the previous stories and it felt like a natural next step in the timeline. These two stories were truly the best part of the book.

The last story was quite disappointing in my opinion. The ending was not bad, just lacklustered. The main motivation for this story came out of nowhere and was not set up like the previous two stories. I also felt like it was a little rushed and

I didn't like that Mimi and Kei almost didn't speak to each other. Especially Kei didn't just open her heart to Mimi, this was quite out of character for her. The book even acknowledges this by saying that Kei normally is very outspoken.

Finally, there are some other small things that I was not the biggest fan of. First of all, the names in the book are all quite similar and hard to differentiate. I understand that it's a non-English book and the names might have some deeper meaning behind them, but personally I found it quite annoying. Secondly, the magic went quite unutilized in the end. I hoped for some more interesting uses of the magic. Finally,

I wanted the final story to explain who the ghost was and how she got stuck there. I thought that the book was working towards this and it would have felt like a much more natural conclusion to the book.

Overall, I loved the second and third stories, but the other two stories were just okay and there are some smaller dislikes. The book was inspiring and a nice read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Death

Minor: Grief and Pregnancy

elledanie's review against another edition

reflective sad slow-paced

2.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Terminal illness, and Pregnancy

Minor: Medical content, Death of parent, and Car accident

ayphyx's review

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This shit made me cry every section

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dementia

Moderate: Chronic illness, Grief, Pregnancy, Car accident, and Death

Minor: Abortion

caseyreadslol's review

reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dementia

Moderate: Death of parent and Pregnancy

julierambaeck's review

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I thought this would be more sad - it was, but at the same time hopeful. A melancholic read about regret, love and time. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Pregnancy, Grief, Death, Dementia, Death of parent, and Car accident

Minor: Abortion

anne_reader's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, and Death

abicaro17's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Sweet and fun sci-fi book. Is it all that groundbreaking? No. Is it a cool short read? Yeah. The characters are very flat and undeveloped and the whole book is short but its fun and definitely different. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Chronic illness, Grief, Pregnancy, Terminal illness, and Death

glyza's review

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Never thought i’d cry my eyes out while reading this, looking forward to crying some more with the rest of this series :,]

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Content Warnings

Minor: Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Grief, and Car accident

sadie_g's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

Love the concept of this book and how it played out and how the stories intertwine together. I ended up getting a lot more emotional than I thought I would at the end of this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dementia and Chronic illness

Moderate: Grief, Pregnancy, Death, Death of parent, and Car accident