Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi ~ a Review

by Donna Huber

In this 5th installment of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, 4 new characters seek to time travel:

• The father who could not allow his daughter to get married
• A woman who couldn't give Valentine's Day chocolates to her loved one
• A boy who wants to show his smile to his divorced parents
• A wife holding a child with no name 

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

November 2024; Hanover Square Press; 978-1335915283
audio, ebook, print (240 pages); translated fiction

I've read all of Toshikazu Kawaguchi's books in this series. You don't have to have read the previous books as these are short stories that are only connected by being set in a Japanese cafe where there is a chair that allows a person to either go to the past or the future. There are a few simple rules, but they are often dealbreakers for the seekers: 1. You can only go to the time when the person you want to meet was in the cafe, 2. You must stay seated in the chair or you will be immediately transported back to your time, 3. You only have as long as it takes for a cup of coffee to go cold, 4. You must drink the whole cup of coffee before it goes cold or you become the ghost in the chair, 5. The ghost who occupies the chair only gets up 1 time a day to go to the bathroom, if you try to remove her from the chair you will be cursed, and finally 6. Nothing you do in the time period you visit will change the events.

While in the first book the four visitors kind of interconnect, this doesn't hold through the entire series. The only recurring characters are the characters who work at the cafe and a couple of regulars. As I said, these books don't have to be read together or even in order. I'm pretty sure Nagare's (the cafe's owner) daughter was older in the last book. In Before We Forget Kindness, she at least seemed younger. But it is kind of hard to tell because the regular characters are barely mentioned - usually, there is more story about them.

I wonder if these are published as individual short stories in magazines and then collected together in these books. There is a lot of repetition in regards to the rules, though the rules aren't explicitly explained as much as they were in the earlier books as well as a few other things. 

These stories are more focused on the characters that want to travel. And that is more or less the case in the previous books, but there was definitely something different about this book. I've always enjoyed the subtle subtext and have thought that the language was almost lyrical at times. But in Before We Forget Kindness it felt heavy-handed. Particularly in the story about the boy who wants to smile for his parents. There is a long diatribe about irreconcilable differences and divorce. It almost felt like a rant. Then there was the trip to Disneyland and a lot of description about how the park works and how long lines keep people from going on some of the rides. 

I didn't enjoy this book as much as the previous ones. The story about the Father was really touching and did live up to the expectations I have for this series.

We do learn a few more things about how the time travel works and what can and cannot be done. 

If you are looking for stories that will warm your heart and maybe make you think about life a little differently, then you should get this book.

Buy Before We Forget Kindness at Amazon

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

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