While I did enjoy the characters and their stories and some beautifully penned passages, I felt the narrative to be repetitive (at this point there was no need to repeat the rules of time travel so many times throughout the book) and lacking in depth as compared to the previous installments.

Nagare's mother, Yukari, who owns the café is travelling, so the the café is run by Nagare and Kazu in her absence. His beautiful yet simple prose offer a moral on life at each part of the book, in a poetic and breathtaking way. The reason for that is simple: if we let everyone who dies be a cause for unhappiness, that would mean people are being born to become unhappy. Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s touching Before Your Memory Fades, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time? In this 3rd instalment, both Nagare and Kazu went to Café Donna Donna (originally owned by Nagare’s mom, Yukari) located in Hakodate to replace Yukari for a while as she had gone to America.Catch up on the rest of the series with Before the Coffee Gets Cold , Tales from the Cafe and Before We Say Goodbye . Light and delightful ways of writing despite how the author still having that same writing habit like before; to repetitively info dumping stuff he already mentioned in each story. Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s touching Before Your Memory Fades, translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot, explores the age-old question: what would you do if you could travel back in time?

I knew from the previous two books in this series that I would fall in love with the characters and journeys embarked on within this read. It was great to learn more about travelling in time I mean those cafés being not just in Tokyo, and what it means to live an everyday life that is wisdom and magic! Poignant stories of missed conversations and lost opportunities are given the chance to be put to rights for different protagonists with different outcomes. This was actually better than I expected considering that many people were saying that this was the weaker book out of this series. Translated from Japanese by Geoffrey Trousselot and featuring signature heart-warming characters and wistful storytelling, in Before Your Memory Fades, Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?With his signature heartwarming characters and immersive storytelling, Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?

These two quotes reaffirmed my thinking that our heart is the eyes of the soul, and if we truly want to know the person, we should never disregard this ability of another way to see. There is the young woman who is angry at her parents for leaving her an orphan, the famous comedian in hiding wanting to speak to his dead wife to tell her of his achievement and the sister consumed by grief at her sibling’s death. This sublime book is responsible for filling my heart with a serenity that only the distinctive characters in 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold' can. Perhaps it’s because I feel so connected to the people in the stories and I don’t want to say goodbye. Many of the people that we meet share a very similar story as to why they wish to go into the past, to the point where they didn’t feel very distinct.When you give a gift to someone who is striving to achieve their dreams, you have to give them the most cherished thing you have. Among some familiar faces, readers will also be introduced to:The daughter who begrudges her deceased parents for leaving her orphanedThe comedian who aches for his beloved and their shared dreamsThe younger sister whose grief has become all-consumingThe young man who realizes his love for his childhood friend too late . As with the other two books, there are short stories where we meet characters who want to time-travel for various reasons. Before the Coffee Gets Cold has become an international bestseller and has been adapted for the screen in Japan. And I really wanted to hear more about the ghost's story - I hope it comes in the fourth installment, which I've just found out has been released but not translated to english.

Huh, well, I asked Kazu about it and she told me that this is Donna Donna and that it's in a different place in Tokyo from Funiculi Funicula. Catch up on the rest of the series set in the charming Tokyo cafe Funiculi Funicula, with Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Tales from the Cafe and Before We Say Goodbye.I dont really understand why the book repeats itself so much - it’s like bingeing a TV series that’s forcing you to watch the ‘last time on…’ every episode. A special big thanks to Irina for recommending the first book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, that has become a new favourite, extending the frontiers of time-travel and making us more human! The other person might not be thinking anything, but there is a tendency to just assume what the other is feeling without reaching out and asking. In simple yet elegant prose, with elements of fantasy and magical realism and an interesting cast of characters, the author touches upon themes of love, loss, grief and moving on. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.