Funiculi Funicula: Tales From The Cafe

edited by Canva

Hello book lovers…

This time I will continue the review of the second book from Funiculi Funucula. It took me quite a long time to finish this book but it was not longer than the first book. That was because of my endless busyness. For this second book, I forced myself to finish reading it because I wanted to move on to a new story immediately. Especially for Funiculi Funicula, I only have two books, while the remaining two books, I am still considering buying them because I feel that this book is not that interesting. So let's talk about this second book.

Funiculi Funicula: Tales From The Cafe

In this second book, the story is still the same as the first book, which is about people who go to the past through a cafe run by the Tokita family. A cup of coffee served by a woman of Tokita descent will take someone to the past and meet the person they want to meet, but only for people who have visited the cafe. In this cafe, many people come with the same hope, to meet their loved ones even though they know that meeting again in the past cannot change anything in the future. The future will not change even if the person who goes to the past tries to change it. Although it sounds futile, everyone who comes has the same hope, which is to be able to meet the person they cannot meet in the present with full regret.

Still the same as the first book, Funiculi Funiculi: Tales From The Café has 4 stories such as: Best Friend, Mother & Son, Lovers, and Husband and Wife.

From the story of the four relationships, I was amazed at the first story, which was about Gotaro who wanted to meet his best friend Suichi. Gotaro wanted to go to the past to meet Sucihi who had died more than twenty years ago, while his daughter, Haruka was getting married. Gotaro wanted to make a video speech from Suichi in the past even though it meant revealing that Haruka was not his biological daughter. Gotaro was torn between wanting to let Suichi know that his daughter was getting married and having to reveal the truth. Suichi who died decades ago left Haruka who was still a baby who is now being well cared for by Gotaro.

The other story is a different person's story but it's like a repeat of the previous book. So I'll just review it.

My Review:

In this second book, the author's storytelling style is still the same, namely presenting one story then focusing on another story. Then the storyline becomes a flashback, which sometimes there is a repetition of the story. It is really boring because it seems forced to increase the number of words and thicken the novel. In addition, in this second book I also still had difficulty identifying the gender of each character because of the lack of description. Because I had read the first book, I was no longer surprised and confused, but that was still the author's weakness in describing each character. Or yes because I read it in translation so I didn't know the difference between women and men.

Same as the first book, I rated this first book as 3 from 5 stars because this book is still lack of entertaining.