Potential Spoilers Ahead

I wanted to like Before the Coffee Gets Cold…but what initially feels like a heartwarming (if simple) story about people rearranging their priorities began to feel more like a story about women learning their place as wives and caregivers.

What’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold about?

In a small café in Tokyo, patrons can travel in time – but they have to return before their coffee gets cold. This book follows four different women who decide to do just that.

It’s a brilliant concept with poor execution.

I really believed for most of the book that I was going to end up giving it probably four stars. Then around 60% or 70%, I began liking it less, and by the end, I realized that there were more things I disliked than liked.

It’s not a bad book. It’s an interesting premise, and feels a bit like a play. It takes place entirely in one setting: a café with a chair that allows people to travel in time. And it has its own resident ghost. It’s truly a unique concept, and I applaud it for that.

But there were things missing. Here’s what I didn’t like:

• The writing was boring. This could be a translation issue more than an actual writing issue, but regardless, I didn’t connect with it
• It was redundant. The rules of time travel were explained and re-explained over and over, as was the description of the café. There were even moments where other things were just plain over-explained, and I found myself thinking, “Okay, I get it!”
• With our main characters being women, it didn’t sit right with me that all of their stories centered on being or becoming more family- or relationship-oriented. And the moral of course being that this is actually what they needed, as it provided more satisfaction than their independent lives did or would. (barf.)
• Building on that point, I hated the final story. Perhaps it’s more to do with the fact that I read this in 2023 USA, and it was written in 2015 Japan. Nevertheless, a story of a frail newly-pregnant woman choosing to lay down her life to see the pregnancy through knowing childbirth will kill her…it strikes a nerve. Not only did I hate her resolution, her whole story feels propagandized – even if that wasn’t the intention
• The stories, and their lessons, were predictable. Their stories were always obvious from the beginning, which further kept me from feeling engaged with the story

Overall, the “morals” or lessons this book sought to examine were so extremely simple, and in many ways old-fashioned. It’s an interesting read in a coffee table sort of way, something you might read while you’re in a waiting room, but not something I particularly enjoyed.

Should you read Before the Coffee Gets Cold?

If you need a super quick and easy read for a flight or vacation, something you can read without needing to be hyper-focused and could potentially finish in a single afternoon – this could be good for that. Some of the stories may be touching, even. A lot of other reviewers have said they came away from this story with nuggets of wisdom to reflect on, and you might, too. The simple writing is easy to digest.

If you prefer stories with more nuance and complex writing, this may not be for you. You probably won’t like it either if you don’t usually enjoy stories centered on life lessons, or if you easily guess the direction of a story.

You’ll probably like it if you like books like The Alchemist (though this one doesn’t have any religious overtones – it’s more the morals, learning more about the self, etc.). If you hated The Alchemist, you’ll hate this one, too.