Before the Coffee Gets Cold is a science fiction novel by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It follows the story of a coffee shop that is rumored to take people back in time. In order to do this, there are many rules that the person has to follow and if they don’t there are negative consequences. Throughout the novel, there are different characters that each go into the cafe in order to travel back in time. You learn about their past, their intentions to time travel, and what they want to accomplish by doing it.
There were two characters named Kei and Fumiko that made this novel entertaining and kept me reading. Specifically, their stories were well written and I felt like I could feel what they were experiencing. However, all of the characters had stories that are very real and happen in people's lives every day. This made the book more enjoyable and kept me fascinated by the characters. There were many times in this novel where I felt the writing made it feel like I was inside of the coffee shop and experiencing the story first hand. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants a short read with impactful characters.