Item: Tales from the Cafe
Rating: 5.00
Author: niamh

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The million-copy bestselling series.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s heartwarming Tales from the Cafe, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a cafe which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time . . .

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes a story of four new customers each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Cafe Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer. Among some faces that will be familiar to readers, we will be introduced to:

The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago
The son who was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral
The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry
The old detective who never gave his wife that gift . . .

This beautiful tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives.

Continue the heartwarming storytelling with Before Your Memory Fades and Before We Say Goodbye.

*Pre-order Book 5, Before We Forget Kindness, now!*

Thank you to Netgalley for providing a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

After loving Toshikazu Kawaguchi's first installment, "Before the Coffee gets Cold", I was absolutely ecstatic to hear the next installments were getting translated, and even more thrilled to be approved for an e-arc!!

The second book in this series transports us back to our favourite little cafe in Tokyo. We meet some familiar faces, but we also meet new ones too. In "Tales from the Cafe", we are faced with the deep, philosophical question of;
"If you can't change the past, why bother visiting at all?". Kawaguchi explores this idea through the different patron's stories.

Diving back into this book, felt like coming home to a warm hug, Kawaguchi does such an excellent job at making the reader feel as if they are an onlooker in our small cafe, watching the time-travelling patrons and being fully involved with their emotional journeys.

5/5 ⭐

Tales from the Cafe

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Reviewed by niamh on Sep 6, 2020

Reading updates