Five visits to Café Funiculi Funicula might finally be my limit—at least for now.
Before We Forget Kindness brings us back to the small Tokyo café where one particular chair allows its occupant to travel through time. The conditions are unchanged: you can't leave the chair, or alter the present and you need to finish your coffee before it gets cold This time, the four visitors return to moments involving divorce, bereavement, family estrangement and a love that was recognised far too late.
I did enjoy each of the four stories, but not equally. The story of the young boy trying to respond differently to his parents’ divorce was moving, but I was also uncomfortable with how much responsibility he placed upon himself for their happiness. The mother who takes her unnamed baby into the past to meet the child’s late father was tender without becoming quite as predictable as I expected.
Then I reached “The Valentine.”
I very rarely cry while reading. I can feel devastated by a book and still remain completely dry-eyed, so when one does make me cry, I remember it. Tsumugi and Ayame’s story caught me completely off guard. Tsumugi allows insecurity and jealousy to create a distance between them, never realising what Ayame has been trying to tell her. By the time she understands, the years between them have become something neither woman can recover.
The Valentine’s chocolates give that story its final emotional force. They contain a declaration that arrived too late to create a future, but not too late to change Tsumugi’s understanding of the past. It was sad without being showy, and it had me in tears.
So why only four stars?
After five books, the repetition is finally bothering me. Every visitor is given the same rules, every cup of coffee creates the same countdown and every story is shaped towards a final emotional revelation. Even the characters’ hesitations and the explanations surrounding the journey have begun to feel overly familiar. I understand that repetition is part of the café’s ritual, but I'm now too aware of the construction underneath each story.
At this point, I'm not sure that I'll read book six, but if I do, it won't be now. I need enough distance from the series for the café to feel inviting again rather than like somewhere I've visited once too often.
But that frustration doesn't erase what worked here. “The Valentine” alone made this instalment memorable, while the other stories continued to ask worthwhile questions about regret, forgiveness and the ways people try to protect those they love. Before We Forget Kindness earned four stars from me, but it also left me ready to step outside the café for a while.
☕ Read this if you enjoy Japanese healing fiction and gentle magical realism
⏳ Four interconnected stories set inside a time-travelling café in Tokyo
💞 Final encounters involving parents, children, spouses, and childhood friends
🫶 Kindness, regret, jealousy, forgiveness, and love expressed too late
🌸 An emotional reflection on how understanding the past can change the present
⚠️ Contains death, cancer, bereavement, divorce, domestic abuse, violence, and parental estrangement
Book Details
Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Paperback ISBN
978-1035046256 — Picador international paperback edition published on 24 September 2024.
Hardcover ISBN
978-1035046249 — Picador first-edition hardcover published in the United Kingdom on 19 September 2024 and released in Australia on 31 December 2024.
eBook ISBN
978-1035046263 — Picador digital eBook edition published on 19 September 2024.
Audiobook ISBN
978-1035046270 — Picador unabridged digital audiobook edition published on 19 September 2024.
Genre
Translated Fiction; Contemporary Fiction; Magical Realism; Literary Fiction; Fantasy; Time-Travel Fiction; Japanese Fiction
Subgenre
Contemporary Japanese Fiction; Philosophical Fiction; Speculative Fiction; Café Fiction; Grief Fiction; Interconnected Stories; Domestic Fiction; Healing Fiction; LGBTQIA+ Fiction
Tropes / Literary Threads
Time travel with strict rules; return before the coffee gets cold; the past cannot be changed; final conversations; reunion with deceased loved ones; divorced parents; child carrying adult emotional responsibility; widowed mother; deceased father meeting his baby.
Publisher
Picador — an imprint of Pan Macmillan — publishes the paperback, hardcover, digital and audiobook editions available to English-language readers.
Series
Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Book Five — preceded by Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Tales from the Café, Before Your Memory Fades and Before We Say Goodbye and followed by Before I Knew I Loved You.
Formats Available
Paperback; Hardcover; eBook; Kindle; EPUB; Unabridged Digital Audiobook.
Audiobook Narrator
Kevin Shen
Audiobook Length
Approximately 5 hours and 48 minutes for the unabridged English-language recording.
Original Release Date
20 March 2023 — first published in Japan by Sunmark Publishing under the title Yasashisa o Wasurenu Uchi ni.
Australian Release Date
31 December 2024 — Picador hardcover edition released in Australia.
Page Count
224 pages — Picador hardcover edition with ISBN 978-1035046249.
Where to Buy Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
📚 Amazon
Affiliate Disclosure
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase through my Amazon affiliate links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. I also encourage supporting Australian booksellers such as QBD Books, independent booksellers, and self-published authors whenever possible.
Danielle Robinson is a literary critic and writer whose
work explores literature through the
lens of atmosphere, memory, culture, and emotional experience. Holding a double degree in philosophy and theology, she combines academic insight with a deeply refined aesthetic sensibility shaped by more than three decades working across the creative industries as an internationally published, multi-award-winning makeup artist, fashion stylist, and interior stager.
She reads widely and rigorously, reading and reviewing more than 200 books each year as both an ARC reader and commissioned critic. Through Silk & Sentences, Danielle approaches literature as something immersive and lived with — not simply stories to consume, but works that shape the way we think, feel, and move through the world.
She writes from her semi-rural Queensland home, where she lives with Alex, her husband of 33 years, their dogs Oscar and Paige, and an ever-growing library of books.
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