Review by lailybibliography - Before the Coffee Gets Cold

lailybibliography 's review for:

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

1.5

emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out.

A lot to unpack. And not much as well.

While some of the stories had genuine heart and the deftly depicted the emotional complexity within loving relationships, I really did not fuck with the conservative ethos underlying all four of the stories.

A work-oriented woman falling into hysterics over a shitty gamer boyfriend; a caregiver-wife resigning herself to her life without regret because, uh, wifehood is inherently noble ig??; a free-spirited woman conforming to the traditional expectations of family inheritance to satisfy her deceased sister’s wish; a terminally-ill woman going through with a life-threatening pregnancy because her postmortem motherhood is more noble than her current, childless existence.

Again, none of these are automatically misogynistic or conservative by definition (well, except maybe the first and last ones), but all of them put together shows a pattern of sexist expectations of women in Japanese society. And it’s not one I’m okay with. I do see the appeal of each story and don’t believe that you have to necessarily believe in, or even think you’d do the same in these situations, to enjoy and be emotionally moved by the stories; but it’s not for me. And honestly, that last story genuinely pissed me off.

I hate stories killing women by pregnancies. I hate the insistence of so much fucking media forcing dangerous pregnancies on chronically/terminally ill women to deliver on some asinine tearjerker moments. Why can’t a woman in highly-developed, modern-day Japan with all its technological capabilities survive a pregnancy? Why in the living fuck would a hospital even let a patient go through with such a dangerous pregnancy?? Literally what the fuck is this supposed to indicate? It pisses me the fuck off.

It’s fine. Another notch in my reading challenge. At least my numbers are up.

Content Warnings