Welcome back, bookish besties!
Thankfully, another year on The Hill means another year of great book recommendations. To start the school year off, I wanted to highlight a series that I devoured over the summer. “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” is a five-book series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. This series is an internationally bestselling series translated into multiple languages from Japanese. This recommendation does have spoilers!
These books not only intertwine its characters – Kawaguchi also intertwines the “magical” and reality through a magical chair within a family-owned cafe. This chair has the power to take a cafe visitor back to the past or forward into the future. The magical chair serves as the transport, but also as the anchor to the present, and part of the anchoring comes from specific rules.
As the novels progress, we are introduced to new rules, based on the reason that the cafe visitors want to travel to the past or future. However, there are specific rules that do not change throughout the novels, even when we switch locations. One important rule of the “magical” chair is that you can only transport through that chair at a specific time. The second most important rule is that once you have time-traveled, you can not leave the chair or else something magical will happen. The final important rule is that there is a time limit of how long you are allowed to stay in the past and future.
There are many aspects of Kawaguchi’s novels that I admire and appreciate, but one specifically memorable to me is how, as readers, we grow with the characters as the novels progress. He not only writes relatable characters, but he writes characters that emotionally capture you, I may or may not have shed a few tears for characters. Of course, as I move on to different reads, I will remember the plot of the novel, but what will stay with me is the connections that I felt to characters that remind me of myself.
Another aspect that I admired was that Kawaguchi reflects on certain lessons of life and connects those lessons to how we, as human beings, base our emotions on the feelings attached to certain relationships.
In “Before the Coffee Gets Cold,” the first book in the series, in the chapter labeled “The Sisters,” we learn about the importance of communicating with loved ones. This chapter follows Hirai, a cafe regular, and her journey in accepting the recent death of her sister, Kumi. We follow Hirai to the past, while she receives the closure of speaking the truth of why she never wanted to run the family business to her sister Kumi. This section of the novel shows that in order to heal, we must first seek closure, then address the emotional block, and only by doing this can we accept the outcome of the things we cannot change.
As a reader, I found myself questioning why I have certain unresolved feelings attached to certain people. My conclusion is that the hardest part of the human experience is accepting the things we cannot change. Kawaguchi encourages readers not to live in the past or worry over the future, but instead to think about how to make your life worth living in the present.
In “Tales from the Cafe,” the second novel in the series, Kawaguchi writes: “Seasons flow in cycle. Life too, passes through difficult winters. But after any winter, spring will follow.”
We’re all embarking on a new journey this upcoming school year on the Hill. As your journey continues and life starts to get overwhelming – remember that it is only a difficult winter, and afterwards your spring will come.
Below is the reading order for the series. It is not required to read them in order; however, not doing so will cause confusion about the relationships between all the characters.
Book order:
- “Before the Coffee Gets Cold”
- “Tales from the Cafe”
- “Before Your Memory Fades”
- “Before We Say Goodbye”
- “Before We Forget Kindness”
