Tales from the Cafe: Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Den fyrste boka i serien, Before the Coffe Gets Cold, var betre. Denne var OK. Føles ikkje som om den gav noko meir til serien.

I get that it was meant to be sweet and thoughtful, but it just didn’t work for me. It felt stiff and heavyhanded; the characters flat and unrelatable, shoehorned to fit into the narrative. All of them are “troubled” in some way, and the author made sure to reiterate their one woe (“felt guilty because XYZ”) in case we missed it the first or second time. The time-travel rules are arbitrary to the point of being annoying, and often interfered with the flow.

Almost as good as the first book

Maybe it’s because I didn’t realize this was technically a sequel and hadn’t read the first one, but ehhhh… I dunno. The grounded rules for how the time travel aspect works are neat and intriguing, but that’s literally where all of my interest was. The subjects of each story are relatively bland, and I found myself somewhat bored near the end.

(Listened to the audiobook narrated by Kevin Shen (who did a great job))