Reviews

El Primer Café del Día / Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

olivia_10x's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

sharyce's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

millah's review against another edition

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3.25

This series is lovely, but I think I need to take a break and read something different before I go on to the next book. 

lexb's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

emanon_'s review against another edition

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fast-paced

4.0

It’s a really good book on its own which is why I’m giving it 4 stars but it starts to get a little repetitive especially since it’s the 3rd book of a series of stories set in the same format.

I won’t lie, I got a little lost with this one cuz we changed location and then we had new characters which were somehow related to the old ones and so on and so forth.

It also feels like the different stories belong to a newspaper storytelling page rather than a book especially with all of the repeated rules.

shelbymarie516's review against another edition

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3.0

I think some of the magic was lost in translation. But this concept was really sweet, and enjoyable. I am not normally a magical realism fan (as much as I try) but this was one of the better ones.

ranee_samaniego's review against another edition

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3.0

Before Your Memory Fades was a bit of a letdown after Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Café.

My main issue is that the translation to English was sloppier - there were many, many instances where I paused reading, scratched my head, and thought, "I think they actually meant..." These glaring English errors were phrases, not individual words, that jolted me out of the story often.

Translation issues aside, many of the stories still brought me to tears, so the narrative was still poignant.

deadmenscurlyshoes's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

triptisoni's review against another edition

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

3.0

bkwacisz's review against another edition

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

3.5

Very repetitive and trite writing. Not really my cup of tea. I appreciate the mysterious atmosphere, but the characters, especially the psychiatrist, were very unconvincing. The psychiatrist acted as if she had never studied people's minds.