Before The Coffee Gets Cold is a uniquely imaginative story about a time travel café in Tokyo, Japan. In particular it focuses on human relationships and loss. Some sections of the story felt laboured and pedestrian to read but altogether it was a deeply cognizant and engaging book about finding closure and the realisation that one has to come to terms with their present situation and make the best of it. Of course I loved all the cultural references but also how it delicately combines a sense of foreboding with the uplifting emotion of hope.