I love this story. This is the fourth book in the series. I am hoping it is not the last one. I love what every character goes through in each story and the lessons learned.

I discovered this series back in 2020 with Before the Coffee Get Cold and loved it so much and was excited when a sequel came out the following year, Tales from the Cafe. When I saw that a fourth book was coming out I realized I somehow missed the third book, Before Your Memory Fades. Thankfully, I was able to get a copy through the library.

While I highly recommend reading the whole series - they are such beautiful stories - it isn't really necessary. Particularly with Before We Say Goodbye. In the earlier books, there was always a focus on the people who ran the cafe or were regulars along with the person who wanted to go back in time. That wasn't the case with this book.

Books 1, 2, and 4 are set in the Tokyo cafe, but the third book is set in a different town that also has a "magical" cafe. There were other things that made book 3 feel like it was out of sync with the other three.

But all the things that I love about this series were there. I wonder if these are published as a serial in Japan as each chapter reads more like a stand-alone short story. Thematically the stories are connected - all the people who want to go back in time want to find closure, say "goodbye", to a loved one.

These are bittersweet stories. One of the rules of time travel in this cafe is you can't change the present. So even if you tell the person they will die in an earthquake, the person cannot escape their fate. However, what does change about the present is how the person who traveled back feels. Sometimes, it is just because they were able to share a piece of themselves that they always wished they had or get understanding about why their partner left them. There is definitely a lesson about regrets and perspective, but it is subtle.

The subtle subtext is what makes these stories so beautiful. And while they might make you a little sad, they will also make you feel lighter in some way.

I thought perhaps this would be the last book in the series, but from Goodreads, I see that a fifth book came out in Japan last year. I will be keeping an eye out for the English translation.

My review will be published at Girl Who Reads on Thursday - https://www.girl-who-reads.com/2024/01/before-we-say-goodbye-by-toshikazu.html

It’s always a pleasure to visit the Finiculi Funicula Cafe! Each chapter of Before We Say Goodbye presents a new challenge with a character facing their regrets over their past actions. I was expecting a continuation of the storyline of the ghost who disappeared in the last installment in the series, Before Your Memory Fades. Hopefully, we will explore that story in a future novel. The scenarios are heart-wrenching at times, but also hopeful. Kawaguchi captures the essence of human nature and the experiences that unite people everywhere.

Thank you NetGalley for this copy of Before We Say Goodbye.
This book is a continuation of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. It's repetitive with the rules of the Funicula Funicula Cafe, but interesting to hear more stories of people visiting the past. My favorite story was the couple wanting to visit their dog, Apollo. So sweet.
I'm grateful for the chance to read this series.

Another good addition to this series. Sometimes I get a little annoyed at having the rules of the cafe explained over and over again with each new character who wants to visit the past, but I enjoy the overall stories enough to look past it.. This installment features a character who want to go back to visit her beloved dog and I was pretty much ugly crying during that section. These books always make me think of who I would visit given the peculiar circumstances of the cafe and I hadn't considered visiting my pets before so that is a whole new thought path to travel down.

thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for an ARC of this book for review.

Another heart-warming book from Kawaguchi. I enjoyed each of the 4 stories of the people who wanted to go back in their past to visit someone. I found the characters to be varied and relatable. I even teared up on the last 2.

I do think a little too much time was spent reiterating the cafe’s rules and the inner monologue of the disbelief surrounding those rules, and I appreciated when the rules explanation was cut back a bit for the readers who have heard them explained several times across each book.

Another great installment in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. I love that every person coming in to the cafe has a different need/want to go back to the past. Each of the stories is centered around love but each one plays out differently.

I see on GoodReads that there is a fifth book in the series. I am looking forward to reading the next book in this series, can't wait for the publisher to translate the next novel.

I will always pick these books up and devour them. This one in particular was very touching and I enjoyed and appreciated all of the stories for different reasons. This collection specifically focused on saying goodbye to loved ones and not living with regrets. Even those these books are tiny they pack an emotional punch. Until the next one...

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

What's not to love about this warm cozy book? This was a really great "pallet" cleanser from heavier reads I've done. This makes me think about life choices, and how thing's can change.

Note: thank you to NetGalley for providing a digital advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Before We Say Goodbye is the fourth book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. Like the first book it is a collection of four short stories of people traveling back in time for a few moments. All of the stories in this book focused around time traveling to see individuals who have passed away. One story is about a dog. As an animal lover - I cried my eyes out over that story. If you enjoyed the previous installments of this series I think you’ll love this one as well.

#netgalley #beforewesaygoodbye

It’s become an annual tradition to spend some time with the characters of Café Funiculi Funicula before the holidays. Before We Say Goodbye is the fourth installment in Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. As always, there are four stories that are interconnected. This time, however, the stories are more somber because, just as the title hints, the recurring theme seems to be death. That’s not to say that they’re complete downers. As usual, Kawaguchi brings his cozy and comforting writing style to each of the stories. As someone who is close to her father, I personally connected with the last story, “Daughter.” The miscommunication between Michiko and her dad was truly heartbreaking, and it really brings home how familial love can be awkward and that it’s so easy to disregard small acts of love, especially when we’re young, and it doesn’t meet our skewed expectations of what love should be. I wouldn’t recommend Before We Say Goodbye as a starting point for the series because not only is it the weakest book in the series to date, but also because it canonically takes place after the events of the first book. Read this if you’re a super fan of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. I personally await the translation of the next book in the series, as Book 5 is already out in Japan.

This series is like a warm blanket. NGL the second story had me in tears. My doggo is 7 and I dread the day (hopefully in at *least* 6 years) that she dies. And now with a baby on the way, how even more awful it will be. This book was just as delightful as the previous three and I'm sad it has ended but there are only so many different stories you can tell about a time traveling chair.

3.5, rounded up. This collection of profoundly emotional short stories is a fitting end to the series. I wish Toshikazu Kawaguchi had focused more on the staff of the café, as was done in previous installments, but it was fun to learn more about the customers and their relationships.

This was a touching, heart warming novel. Just as good as the rest. The story about Apollo hit me particularly hard.

how can so much emotion be poured into such a tiny novel? The writing left me breathless and hugging my inner self.

just like all the prior books in the series, before we say goodbye is a perfect addition to it. heartfelt, compelling, will make you cry and feel your feelings in public if youre not careful-- speaking from personal experience-- it's a cozy book with depth, sorrow and heart. and it also really makes you want coffee the whole time. it's just as good as the first book. 10 out of 10

It’s always a pleasure visiting this little magical coffee shop. The tears are always good! Thank you for the opportunity to read this!

"Before We Say Goodbye" is a pleasant sequel in the "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" series. I would personally classify these books as "casual reading" in that they are fairly easy to pick up and put down at one's leisure. They are not particularly gripping or page-turning, but rather they're the perfect books to read on a relaxing afternoon. I would wager that people who enjoyed "A Man Called Ove" would also quite enjoy this series. They tell of individuals visiting a particularly gifted cafe and their reasons for doing so.

This is the fourth installment of the “Funiculi Funicula” cafe series, each of which consists of four separate stories tied together with a similar thread. These four stories center around grief and the regret of things left unsaid. Grief of a parent, spouse/partner, and pet. This can be read as a standalone, as all of the stories explain the rules, two of the four even explicitly list five rules to follow. There are little mentions of previous characters sprinkled in for those who have read the other books.

I enjoyed this book and the pacing of it as each story seemed to flow into the next, but each story is contained in the shop itself. We hear the characters' inner monologues speak of what they are going to say to a loved one or how they will proceed with their life from that moment on but it is all extrapolation from there on, whether or not they follow through is not up to us and doesn’t include us.

I’m not sure if this is discussed in the previous books, but the ability to pass objects between time periods, I found fascinating. That there is able to be a tangible souvenir of the time spent in the past is a beautiful way to keep the memory alive.

I left with a message we would all benefit from remembering, that we should tell our loved ones loudly, constantly, and enthusiastically how much we love and are thankful for them because you never know when it will be the last time. And to love means to be loved in return even despite our best efforts.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced copy.