Before the Coffee Gets Cold

OBS, this review contains a spoiler in point 3…

This book did not live up to my expectations at all... Here is what I'm left thinking, after having just turned the last page:
1) The book did not make me feel anything, but rather told me what it intended me to feel.... does that make sense? Often, I as the reader wasn't left to investigate or feel the character's emotions but were merely told what they were. Like in the first story, where we are just told that Fumiko loved Goro, but not at any time did I actually feel that that was the case. This made the story kind of bland to me - it just didn't leave anything up to me as the reader, as I was almost spoon-fed with what I was supposed to think/feel about the characters.
2) The book was so short, that I did not feel, that I got to know the characters very well. Despite the whole book revolving only around the same 4 people (more or less) through a short story for each of them, I did not feel that that was enough for me to get to know them and care for them deeply enough to share their love and sorrows. Though all characters were present in all of 4 stories (more or less), most if not all of the descriptions that would make us understand them and feel close to them were limited to their own story, which was approximately 30 pages for each. This inevitably isn’t enough to make me know the characters and care for them.3) The fact that I knew that the author was male from his writing alone…. Spoiler! In the last story, I hated (HATED) that the author made Kei die of CHILDBIRTH. This is a trope I just HATE, especially when a man writes it (I acknowledge that this may be sexist, but for men to write stories about women sacrificing their lives for their unborn child I find sexist too, so I suppose we are even.) In general, I found that the author's depiction of the female characters was very “written-by-a-man” like. Especially when it came to Fumiko, who mastered 6 languages, graduated top of her class, worked for a major medical It firm, and looked perfect, but without knowing it, of course, because a woman is always prettier when she doesn’t know her own value. The description of her physical appearance together with the constant comment about how she would draw anyone’s gaze, was making me insane. Whenever the author introduced someone new to the story, it was also always the clothing and the color of the clothing that was described, which I found rather boring and disruptive of the flow.

Bottom line: the book wasn’t TERRIBLE, but that is also only because it was so short and thus easy to get through (and because I bought it for no money, meaning low to no regret on that front). This is also why I wouldn’t necessarily refuse to read the other books in the series if I came across some cheap copies of them, but I would also never seek them out nor spend money on a new copy of the book....