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A review by waido
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
hopeful
inspiring
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
A very calm and cozy book, just like the coffee shop that it take place in. I can't say that a lot happened in the book, but it's quite a relaxing and enjoyable read.
The book revolves heavily around the theme of time traveling and regrets. What I find interesting is that unlike the common time traveling motive of fixing the present, the book explore the aspect of fixing the time travelers. Knowing that the present is fixed and cannot be changed, they still opted for the time traveling experience to come to terms with their mistakes. Once they do that, they gained the necessary insight and courage live their present and shape their future. The great thing I find about this simple message is that we don't really need time traveling to face our past regrets. Sure, time traveling helps but we can do just fine without it.
A small thing that I dislike about the book is that the character cast doesn't have much depth to them. We get to know what they are like and the circumstances that leads to their time traveling decision but not much more than. It doesn't help that the above trope of coming to terms with your mistakes replayed for all the characters, so the story becomes quite predictable at times. However, these didn't weighed down the experience for me too much and I still find this to be quite a good and relaxing bedtime read.
The book revolves heavily around the theme of time traveling and regrets. What I find interesting is that unlike the common time traveling motive of fixing the present, the book explore the aspect of fixing the time travelers. Knowing that the present is fixed and cannot be changed, they still opted for the time traveling experience to come to terms with their mistakes. Once they do that, they gained the necessary insight and courage live their present and shape their future. The great thing I find about this simple message is that we don't really need time traveling to face our past regrets. Sure, time traveling helps but we can do just fine without it.
A small thing that I dislike about the book is that the character cast doesn't have much depth to them. We get to know what they are like and the circumstances that leads to their time traveling decision but not much more than. It doesn't help that the above trope of coming to terms with your mistakes replayed for all the characters, so the story becomes quite predictable at times. However, these didn't weighed down the experience for me too much and I still find this to be quite a good and relaxing bedtime read.