If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?

In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.

Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.

Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time? 

I purchased a copy of this book for my own reading.

Having enjoyed a number of translated Japanese novels, this one caught my attention. The idea of being able to travel back in time to speak with someone again, even just for a short time, would be appealing. The human element appealed to me, with this using a well-trodden sci-fi trope in a decidedly every day setting.

The premise of the book is really good, with some well established rules for travellers. They can only meet people who have been to the café before. The must sit in a specific seat. They can only stay as long as their coffee remains warm, and must drink it before its cold or be stuck there. And most importantly, nothing they say or do can change the present of future.

The stories for each of the main characters that travel in time are interesting enough, with compelling reasons for them to want to travel back in time. My main issue was the regularity with which the the rules were reinforced. It felt like they were referred to constantly. I understand the four travellers are different people, but from the perspective of the reader, it pulled me out of the story hearing the same rules – in detail – every time. Overall, it wasn’t a bad book, but certainly not enough to draw me into the rest of the series.

My rating: