Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Before We Forget Kindness is the fifth in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. I blogged about previous books (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Tales from the Café, Before Your Memory Fades, and Before We Say Goodbye). There is a new book that I pre-ordered on Amazon coming out next year.
In Before We Forget Kindness, the author continues with stories from Tokyo’s time travel café. This time we meet a father who would not allow her daughter to get married so he time travels to see her and give her his blessing. This happens at the same time as she attempts to time travel to see him and apologize for not listening to him, as the marriage turns out to be abusive and falls apart. This element is nicely written as they attempt to time travel at the same time, even though at different times of their lives, which causes confusion and is interestingly written. Then, we also meet a woman who couldn’t give Valentine’s Day chocolates to her loved one and when her loved one time travels to a day when they were supposed to me, she finally manages to do so before she dies. Then, a boy wanted to show a smile to his parents when they announced a divorce instead of crying because he previously made a wish in Disneyland that he wanted them to be happy. Finally, a wife wants to visit her deceased husband and have him name their child, in line with the Japanese tradition of parents naming children together, which this time could not happen as the husband died before the child was born.
What is common to all these stories is time travelers showing kindness to their loved ones and thus going back in time. I loved this part and how kindness runs through all stories just like in Before We Say Goodbye people were time-traveling to say goodbye properly regardless of how hard this was. It also seems that as the stories progressed, the author creates a common topic that runs through the books (saying goodbye and kindness in the last two books), thus the series remains the same, but it also changes as the author grows along the journey. I also love the way the series develops, and the messages of positivity are created, and I look forward to the new book in this unusual and imaginative book series.
Thank you for reading!