Before Your Memory Fades
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4.3 • 14 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The third novel in the international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, following four new customers in a cafe where customers can travel back in time.
In northern Japan, overlooking the spectacular view Hakodate Port has to offer, Cafe Donna Donna 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 and Tales from the Cafe comes another story of four new customers, each of whom is hoping to take advantage of the cafe's time-travelling offer. Among some familiar faces from Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s previous novels, readers will also be introduced to:
A daughter who couldn’t say ‘You’re an idiot.’
A comedian who couldn’t ask ‘Are you happy?’
A younger sister who couldn’t say ‘Sorry.’
A young man who couldn’t say ‘I like you.’
With his signature heart-warming characters and immersive storytelling, in Before Your Memory Fades, Toshikazu Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The third mosaic novel in Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold series (after Tales from the Café) is melancholy and uplifting by turn. This installment moves north of Tokyo to Hakodate on Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's main islands. There, in Café Donna Donna, customers can travel to the past following very specific rules: they must sit in a certain chair, they cannot leave the café and can only interact with past moments that have taken place within its walls,, and they must finish their coffee before it gets cold or they'll be stuck in the café as a ghost. Four travelers decide to risk it anyway—The Daughter, The Comedian, The Sister, and The Young Man. Three of their four stories concern visiting those who are now dead and, though their actions in the past cannot impact the reality of the present, their conversations do change how they feel, leaving each with a more positive take on their situation. Kawaguchi reinforces the time travelers' lesson of living without regret by having the café patrons read and discuss the fictional book What If the World Were Ending Tomorrow: One Hundred Questions. Meanwhile, the beautiful backdrop of Hakodate creates a lovely atmosphere. Readers looking for a nudge to live life to its fullest will find one here.
