Before the Coffee Gets Cold

I went into this book excited about the concept, but it was ultimately just an okay read. Everything felt flat and cliched: the characters, the setting, the stories. Just incredibly boring, even down to the constant descriptions of each character's clothes. I hated the last chapter. I won't reveal exactly why due to spoilers, but it was badly written and a bit insensitive. The only things that saved this for me were Kazu, who was a slightly interesting character who I wanted to know more about, and the chapter about the man with dementia and his wife, which ran surprisingly deep compared to the rest of the book. I think I'll be skipping the sequel, however.