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bellebookcorner's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
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? Yes
4.25
"Meskipun kenyataan tidak berubah, kalau ada orang yang harus atau semestinya ditemui, itu saja cukup.”
Lain dengan 2 buku sebelumnya, buku ketiga di serial Before the Coffee Gets Cold ini akan mengajak pembaca akan diajak ke kafe lain bernama Kafe Dona Dona.
Kafenya yang lebih besar, suasana baru di Hokkaido dan beberapa pemeran baru yang dikenalkan menciptakan kesan yang fresh untuk serial ini.
Karakter yang ada di 2 buku sebelumnya juga kembali hadir – Kazu dan Nagare yang datang untuk mengurus Kafe Dona Dona untuk sementara ditemani dengan Sachi!
Beberapa karakter baru yang dikenalkan memang sedikit membuat bingung di awal cerita, tapi setelah mengenal mereka seiring berjalannya cerita membedakan mereka jadi jauh lebih mudah.
Buku ini terbagi menjadi 4 kisah yang dengan hubungan yang berbeda (suami-istri, kakak-adik, sahabat, orangtua-anak) tetapi mempunyai satu kesamaan yaitu, berfokus seputar kematian, rasa kehilangan orang yang dicintai dan bagaimana melanjutkan hidup setelah ditinggalkan.
Dipenuhi momen menyayat hati yang berhasil bikin aku nangis, aku juga menikmati pembahasan dari setiap kali para karakter menjawab pertanyaan dari buku “Seratus Pertanyaan: Bagaimana Jika Esok Kiamat ?”. Yang awalnya hanya untuk lucu-lucuan justru memiliki makna yang mendalam.
Masih begitu banyak misteri tentang keluarga Tokita – keluarga pemilik kafe yang membuat pelanggannya bisa menjelajah waktu. Adanya anggota keluarga baru yang muncul di cerita ini yaitu Yukari Tokita (Ibu Nagare), yang tak disangka mempunyai peran cukup penting walaupun Yukari tidak berada di kafe Dona Dona secara langsung.
Sama dengan Kafe Funiculi Funicula di Tokyo, Kafe Dona Dona juga memiliki penunggu baru kursi special di kafe tersebut yang aku harap akan diceritakan asal usulnya di buku selanjutnya.
Overall, buku ini sangat menyentuh dengan beberapa pelajaran penting yang disematkan di sepanjang cerita.
Highly recommended dengan terjemahannya yang tidak kaku sehingga dapat menikmati buku ini dari awal hingga akhir!
“Kematian tidak seharusnya menjadi alasan seseorang tidak bahagia. Sebab, tak akan ada orang yang tak akan mati. Jika kematian adalah penyebab ketidakbahagiaan, berarti semua orang dilahirkan untuk tidak bahagia. Hal itu tidak benar. Setiap orang tentu dilahirkan demi kebahagiaan.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness
serendipity421's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-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
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Mental illness
Minor: Car accident
viviundworte's review against another edition
emotional
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
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Terminal illness, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Car accident, Alcohol, and Alcoholism
mariella123's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
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
4.0
My favourite of the series so far.
I imagine that this would be a great book for someone trying to grapple with grief. The last paragraph gave me chills.
I always find myself wishing the characters in this series were a bit more fleshed out, I struggle to distinguish people at times. The character map at the beginning was really useful for this though. I think that's what would make me give this a 5.
I'm looking forward to the next one coming out!! These books are so cosy and really transport you.
I imagine that this would be a great book for someone trying to grapple with grief. The last paragraph gave me chills.
I always find myself wishing the characters in this series were a bit more fleshed out, I struggle to distinguish people at times. The character map at the beginning was really useful for this though. I think that's what would make me give this a 5.
I'm looking forward to the next one coming out!! These books are so cosy and really transport you.
Content Warnings
Minor: Mental illness, Death of parent, Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
karalara's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
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? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Mental illness, Grief, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Chronic illness
Minor: Car accident and Suicide attempt
alexandrabelze's review
emotional
hopeful
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
loved the change in scenery for this one!! it was so much fun meeting all of the new characters and getting to know them. kawaguchi never disappoints!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Abandonment, Death, Death of parent, and Mental illness
Moderate: Suicide attempt and Terminal illness
Minor: Medical content
izzybla's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
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? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness
sarah984's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This was fine but I didn't enjoy it as much as the other two books in the series so far. Mostly tragic dead woman stories about guys.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, and Terminal illness
Minor: Abortion, Car accident, and Alcoholism
lynxpardinus's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Death, Death of parent, and Grief
Moderate: Mental illness, Car accident, Abandonment, and Cancer
Minor: Abortion, Bullying, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, and Infidelity
irisraerah's review
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