Before Your Memory Fades. Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Translated by Geoffrey Trousselot. 2018/2022. 220 pages. [Source: Review copy]
First sentence: "Why are you in Hokkaido?" Kei Tokita's voice sounded tinny coming from the handset.
Premise/plot: Before Your Memory Fades is a book of connected novellas. It is the THIRD book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. The premise of the series is that there is a cafe with special, 'magical,' powers. There is one chair that will allow the occupant to travel forward or backward in time. But there are rules, of course there are rules. They have to stay seated, of course. They have to return to the present before the coffee turns cold. They can only meet people who have visited the cafe. Nothing they do in the past (or the future) will effect the present. Each story focuses on a journey (to the past or to the future). The 'main' characters are the staff of the cafe AND cafe regulars. (Think the sitcom Cheers). One of the running elements of this one is that one of the characters is ALWAYS reading a book--it is a book of questions (100, I believe) that pose various questions each with the premise of if the world was ending tomorrow...would you choose answer 1 or 2.
My thoughts: I picked this one up thinking it was book two. It wasn't. When did I realize this? Not until I was halfway through. Do I think it would have made more sense if I hadn't skipped book two (by accident)? Probably. Maybe. Do I think it would have been less confusing if I jotted down a list of characters? Definitely. Also I think if I had read the books--all three--in order and close together. I just had a hard time keeping track of the characters.
I liked the premise well enough. Though apparently there are two cafes with this magical ability? I had a hard time following some of the plot because the characters kept getting tangled up in my mind.
© 2023 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment