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Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'
El Primer Café del Día / Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
33 reviews
irisraerah's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
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? Yes
2.0
The second book in this series was losing me, but this is the absolute nail in the coffin. I only avoided DNFing it out of stubbornness. Before Your Memory Fades is the franchise location of an idea that already struggled with execution and expansion. Literally. We are introduced to a second café with the same time travel magic, many of the same characters, and the same increasingly exhausted tropes of women dying of illness just to convince other people to look on the bright side. Time and time again, themes of gender arise in this series that reveal the extremely shallow understanding of women the author has, with self sacrifice to explicitly support a less talented male love interest being a theme in a full half of the stories in this book.
If you are familiar with the film studies phenomenon of "dead wife footage" (which I will now over explain in a condescending way that reveals I don't trust you to put a simple 2+2 together for a rather simple concept, oh hey like Kawaguchi does seven times a chapter!), where a dead wife or girlfriend is remembered, either in home videos, dreams, or memories shot in brighter, more nostalgic colors, showing her to be carefree and loving and always centering the protagonist above herself usually to the point of lacking any discernable personality herself beyond "innocent and beautiful," you've already read this book. Put it down, perhaps search up Caitlyn Rylie's TikTok about this trope, and move on with your day.
Continuing with sexist tropes, the women in this booklose their magic when they get pregnant. This is a tired trope, and the book makes no notice of it. It appears handwaved away as all the other arbitrary rules that the author established for the café are. This book does include a quick moment to breakdown one of the main rules of the time travel magic, but it feels defensive, like the author is trying to pretend his magic system is more considered and coherent than it is.
Finally, this book is extremely redundant. Not just story to story, but page to page, sometimes paragraph to paragraph, the exact same things get repeated over and over. It would be one thing if this was to give context only to things that occurred in the earlier books, which in the book's defense does occur, but it repeats everything two or three times minimum. For such a short book it boggles my mind to say this, but this book would be leagues better if it had one third the word count it does.
For "Baby's First Book About Grief," maybe you could get something out of this. If you're slightly introspective at all, have ever experienced grief yourself, or just don't enjoy three pages of incorrect analysis about the "To Be or Not To Be" monologue from Hamlet (wild to get a reference about suicide so wrong in a book with themes of death and suicide, though the book has a very elementary understanding of both so what did I expect), read something else.
If you are familiar with the film studies phenomenon of "dead wife footage" (which I will now over explain in a condescending way that reveals I don't trust you to put a simple 2+2 together for a rather simple concept, oh hey like Kawaguchi does seven times a chapter!), where a dead wife or girlfriend is remembered, either in home videos, dreams, or memories shot in brighter, more nostalgic colors, showing her to be carefree and loving and always centering the protagonist above herself usually to the point of lacking any discernable personality herself beyond "innocent and beautiful," you've already read this book. Put it down, perhaps search up Caitlyn Rylie's TikTok about this trope, and move on with your day.
Continuing with sexist tropes, the women in this book
Finally, this book is extremely redundant. Not just story to story, but page to page, sometimes paragraph to paragraph, the exact same things get repeated over and over. It would be one thing if this was to give context only to things that occurred in the earlier books, which in the book's defense does occur, but it repeats everything two or three times minimum. For such a short book it boggles my mind to say this, but this book would be leagues better if it had one third the word count it does.
For "Baby's First Book About Grief," maybe you could get something out of this. If you're slightly introspective at all, have ever experienced grief yourself, or just don't enjoy three pages of incorrect analysis about the "To Be or Not To Be" monologue from Hamlet (wild to get a reference about suicide so wrong in a book with themes of death and suicide, though the book has a very elementary understanding of both so what did I expect), read something else.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Death, Grief, and Suicide
hello_lovely13's review against another edition
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? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Mental illness, Chronic illness, and Terminal illness
Minor: Car accident and Pregnancy
neverlandangel's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness, Death, and Mental illness
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Death of parent
georgiacatt's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I much preferred the first book in this series, but I thought the continuation from the original was very good. I think the idea of returning to the past becomes slightly more predictable and repetitive but the stories of each character are varied so it is still a nice read. Once again, there is a philosophical idea that runs throughout each short story and links it all together at the end which is very effective.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Mental illness
claudiashelf's review against another edition
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? Yes
3.5
I can frankly say that the story in this book is just the same as the two previous books, there are not many significant differences. The storyline is literally the same but only with different topics in every chapter; each chapter is about another person ( mostly a customer ) in the cafe. One thing that I love to complete this series is that the story is just getting promising, and when I’m reading them I can feel the heartwarming in my gut, and because each story has its own lesson.
I can still feel the levity reading this, despite the stories feeling a little monotonous, especially toward the end, and the way the rules kept repeating in every chapter turning out to be unsettling for me.
I can still feel the levity reading this, despite the stories feeling a little monotonous, especially toward the end, and the way the rules kept repeating in every chapter turning out to be unsettling for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Death, and Chronic illness
samarakroeger's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.25
I thought this book was especially heavy-handed, even when in comparison with the first two. I didn't like that it was date stamped (set in 2030) and how every story revolved around early death or suicidal ideation. Through a trip to the past, every depressed person miraculously found the strength to keep on living! In comparison to the first two books in the series, the stories in here really lacked variety and a sense of urgency.
but then again, maybe I'm just cold-hearted.
but then again, maybe I'm just cold-hearted.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Death, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts
kappafrog's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Bullying, Child abuse, Grief, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Car accident, Medical content, Death, Death of parent, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Abortion, Alcoholism, Addiction, Alcohol, and Pregnancy
robinks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
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? Yes
5.0
This third volume was the saddest of the series so far, but I loved the change of scene and the device of the book to tie the stories together. It is also nice to see the recurring characters continue to grow.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Grief, Abandonment, Death, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Chronic illness, and Medical content
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Bullying
Minor: Suicide, Car accident, Infidelity, and Abortion
anna_catherine73's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
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? No
4.25
Kawaguchi has done it again! The third instalment of the Before The Coffee Gets Cold series is just as poignant and moving as the previous two. It was only slightly weaker than Tales From The Cafe in my opinion as one or two of the stories weren’t as moving as in the previous books but even so, these books are always magical, always a delight. A must read for fans of the previous books.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Grief, Mental illness, Chronic illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness
tomoonarmy's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
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? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical content, Death of parent, Grief, Chronic illness, Mental illness, and Death
Minor: Suicide attempt, Medical content, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Panic attacks/disorders, and Pregnancy