“Before The Coffee Gets Cold” Review

💙 Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Kazuo Ishiguro makes you forget about time, literally, and before you know it, you’ve read the whole book.. just before the coffee gets cold 😉

💕 Heart-warming and unpretentious, I felt like I had just found myself entangled in the cosiest of hugs.

☕️ The plot is divided into 4 different stories, however they all take place in the same cafe and have as protagonists the same set of characters. What makes this cafe extraordinary is the fact that it can take you back in time, but you have to make sure that you drink up your coffee before it goes cold or you’ll become a ghost unable to leave the cafe. There are more rules regarding the travelling back in time. For example, you can only go back to a time when you were in the cafe, and meet people who have also visited the cafe. You  have to sit in a specific seat and you have to be aware that you’ll not be able to change the present. 

🫖 Within all 4 stories, many important subjects are treated such as heartbreak, grief, terminal illness, friendship, sisterhood and love. However, they are presented without turning the book into a psychology textbook and installing a gloomy atmosphere. 

🍶 The only negative critic I feel to make about Before The Coffee Gets Cold is that the first story was the weakest one. I found the protagonist hard to sympathise with and her story seemed relatively of no importance, compared to the other three. I think that the intent was good, that was to show how the inability to show your vulnerability and feelings to your partner can cause the end of a relationship. However, I don’t think it was fully dealt with. I definitely wouldn’t have placed it at the start of the book, as it didn’t grab my attention and I was tempted to put it away.