A review by _david_
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective slow-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

3.0

The ideas and story in this book are great. Yet the writing style bothered me so much that I will not rate the book higher than 3 stars. 

There's so much overexplaining and repetition. To prevent spoilers, I'll make up an example: "Character A went to the toiler. Her seat was empty because character A had gone to the bathroom. [one paragraph later] Character B took character's A seat since it was empty because A had gone to the bathroom." It's as if the book is written in a way that you can jump in any chapter or paragraph randomly. It slows the pace way too much in a book that's quite short.  

Something else in the writing style which bothered me was that every detail got the same amount of attention. It made the important and unique parts of the book feel less special. 

Overall it felt like I was being mansplained to. The book told me how the characters felt and why. I didn't feel respected as a reader.

Something that's a more personal clash is that the tone of the book is very conservative. Not in a very explicit "women should do x" way, but the women are described in a very different way than the men. The most clear example is that one chapter is very pro-life and that women's outfits are constantly described in great detail, even when not relevant.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings