None
3 stars
This book reads like stage directions, and perhaps it would be even better suited as a play.
The book tells 4 stories about 4 different women and their experiences sitting in a special chair in a special cafe drinking a special cup of coffee (after they the moody ghost woman goes for her daily pee) and going back in time.
Each person goes back to speak to someone they know and love, and in all cases, as is repeatedly emphasized, they are not able to change anything that happened between that time and the time they sat down to go back. But they all come back changed. In story after story, we see how although looking back and interrogating the past can't change what's already happened, it can change where go in the future.
My biggest critique of the book is that it suffers from "women written by men" syndrome. …
This book reads like stage directions, and perhaps it would be even better suited as a play.
The book tells 4 stories about 4 different women and their experiences sitting in a special chair in a special cafe drinking a special cup of coffee (after they the moody ghost woman goes for her daily pee) and going back in time.
Each person goes back to speak to someone they know and love, and in all cases, as is repeatedly emphasized, they are not able to change anything that happened between that time and the time they sat down to go back. But they all come back changed. In story after story, we see how although looking back and interrogating the past can't change what's already happened, it can change where go in the future.
My biggest critique of the book is that it suffers from "women written by men" syndrome. The women are described by their attractiveness, their attitudes feel like a male-centered cliche ('tears are just a weapon to manipulate men', 'oh I'm a woman I don't need friends or an email'). The last story also has some deeply misogynistic undercurrents.
Overall an interesting book with a solid and distinctive time-travel premise, and a solid message supported by that narrative tool.
