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A review by lostlenore_
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
5.0
I highly enjoyed this short read by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It's a delightful contemporary magical realism book that borrows lots of elements from the structure of drama. At times, I felt like I was reading a play and not prose and this was something that I found enticing.
The story is set in a very confined -physically- space, a coffee shop in Tokyo which is very small, and not so many visit it. The particular spot can transfer you back in time but there are all sorts of rules you have to follow in order to do the time jump.
What I loved about this book was its simplicity-avoiding any lengthy descriptions and excessive cliffhangers, it raises the stakes very early and manages to keep your interest because of the dwellers' experiences. It's not always easy to write a story with a single location and the same characters from beginning to end. The art of such delicate storytelling is something Kawaguchi has conquered.
I was deeply touched by the human dilemmas and fears the book discusses and I experienced lots of bittersweet moments while reading it. The rules of time-traveling were many, but they challenged what we've read on the topic so far, and this was another reason why I enjoyed the story so much.
I'll definitely keep an eye on the author's works and on contemporary Japanese lit of the kind because I think I've found a genre I love reading that I had long overlooked!
The story is set in a very confined -physically- space, a coffee shop in Tokyo which is very small, and not so many visit it. The particular spot can transfer you back in time but there are all sorts of rules you have to follow in order to do the time jump.
What I loved about this book was its simplicity-avoiding any lengthy descriptions and excessive cliffhangers, it raises the stakes very early and manages to keep your interest because of the dwellers' experiences. It's not always easy to write a story with a single location and the same characters from beginning to end. The art of such delicate storytelling is something Kawaguchi has conquered.
I was deeply touched by the human dilemmas and fears the book discusses and I experienced lots of bittersweet moments while reading it. The rules of time-traveling were many, but they challenged what we've read on the topic so far, and this was another reason why I enjoyed the story so much.
I'll definitely keep an eye on the author's works and on contemporary Japanese lit of the kind because I think I've found a genre I love reading that I had long overlooked!