Discover the beloved early classic from the million-copy bestselling author of WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY
Across a bridge in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo, a charming little matcha café – open only on Mondays – offers a beacon of light and healing to all who pass through its doors.
All throughout the week, customers flock to the Marble Café that’s tucked away behind the trees – except when it’s closed on Mondays, when the Matcha Café opens in its place, offering its clientele a warm cup of matcha and restoration to start the busy week ahead.On this one day of the week, people from all walks of life frequent this cozy haven and experience the joys of human connection. Among them include: • A singer who has just broken up with his lover • An unsociable young owner of a tea wholesaler • A husband who has made his wife angry • A designer and owner of a lingerie shop • A Kamishibai artist who doesn't get along with his grandmother
This heart-warming story spans Tokyo and Kyoto over twelve months, bringing together a community of untold unfolding lives – all starting with a cup of matcha.

My Review:

Tokyo’s Marble Cafe, the center of the interconnected stories in Hot Chocolate on Thursday, is never open on Mondays. At least, not unless the cafe’s owner, the Maestro, decides to hold a special event. Special events are always scheduled on Mondays, when the Marble Cafe is officially NOT the Marble Cafe.

On one particular Monday in January, the Maestro decides to open a Matcha Cafe. He’s helping out the son of an old colleague, by providing the young man a preview of what his life might be like opening a branch of his family’s traditional matcha cafe in Tokyo, where matcha isn’t currently as popular as it is in Kyoto, where the family business is based.

The young man is reluctant to make such a drastic change in his life for any number of reasons, none of which the readers are aware of. And neither is the young woman who enters the cafe looking for a treat on a day that definitely needs one. At least from her own perspective. She has no clue that she might be the treat FOR the man behind the counter making her matcha while awkwardly attempting small talk. Something he KNOWS he’s really bad at.

Like the first book in this series, Hot Chocolate on Thursday (when the Marble Cafe definitely IS open), the stories in this second book represent hands clasped around a circle. Also, this time around, the circle of an entire year.

That image, of people holding hands out one to another, is part of the Maestro’s own philosophy about life and connections. It’s a version of paying it forward, that everyone is connected to everyone else, and that people need to give thanks to the folks who created the connections that have led them to happiness and to do the same for others.

In the case of this particular round of stories, it begins with that young woman who is having a bad day after showing up for work on her day off. From there the story goes around the circle to a man returning to the cafe hoping for matcha in February, only to discover a better present nearby at a local lingerie shop. Which leads to a gift of lingerie that is not going to be worn at a wedding in March, to the beginnings of a resolution surrounding a long-standing contention between a young woman and her judgmental grandmother, and so on.

Each story is delightful in itself – and in the way that it seamlessly leads to the next. A couple of the stories provide a bit of an update on some of the characters involved in that first book, and of course it all comes full circle, as that cup of Hot Chocolate on Thursday did, to the couple who met but did not manage to connect – yet – over that Matcha on Monday. Except that the story in December is told from the opposite point of view.

But they’re all interconnected. Even if one of the characters never does manage fulfill their dream of shaking the hand of a kangaroo along the way.

Escape Rating B: This series, and stories like it, are definitely mood reads for me. Or mood listens, as this case turned out to be.I got hooked on these interconnected short stories after reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and it seems like the popularity of that book in the US opened the floodgates to making translations of other, similar series available.

Most of these stories are gentle reads. By gentle I mean that not a lot happens, there are no chase scenes or murders or grand passions. They’re stories about everyday life among everyday people, vignettes of mostly good things with the occasional bit of sad fluff thrown in to keep the whole thing from being too sweet.

The story about the contentious relationship between the young woman and her judgmental grandmother is the drop of bittersweetness in this particular cup. They do find a way forward, but old, bad habits prove VERY hard to break.

In the case of this particular book, and this particular series, I enjoy the way that the stories connect from one to another. It’s not subtle and it’s not intended to be and that’s just right. The way that the story comes full circle provides just the right amount of closure.

These are terrific stories to listen to at bedtime, enjoyable but not overly dramatic. And they’re great if you’re looking for something to lift your mood, just as the young woman is looking for a treat to lift hers in the first story.

I did listen to this one, as I did the previous book. And again, there are four narrators to keep the stories from sounding the same. While I’m not going to insert my usual rant about the lack of inclusion of a cast list in this multi-voiced production, that may be for the best in this particular case as there’s one story that is told from the perspective of a child, and the adult voice narrating that particular story was jarring to my ear. Not that the narrator didn’t do well in other parts of the book, but they sounded too obviously adult to be the right narrator in that one instance.

The next time I need another sweet reading/listening pick-me-up, I’m sure I’ll pick up another one of these stories. If you’re looking for something similar, please check out some of my favorites in this genre, including What You Are Looking For Is In the Library, The Kamogawa Food Detectives, The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favorite Recipe Funeral Committee, We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, and, of course, Hot Chocolate on Thursday.