Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie FordMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet is just as the title says.
It's both bitter at times and sweet in others, as we follow Henry. A Chinese-American boy, growing up in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the fighting of Japanese-American families being rounded up and shipped of to camps. Jamie Ford manages to capture the sweetness of twelve year old Henry as he tries to get on through life while attending a pretty much, whites only school, we hear of the bitterness of his bullies and the struggles that he faces both, at school and at home with his own father who is intently focused on the conflict between the Japanese and Chinese war going on on China's soil, thousands of miles away from Seattle.
Flipping back and forth between the 1940's and the present day in the 1980's, we see the trials that young Henry went through and then the present day Henry, of his life as he has gotten older and had a family of his own. We see the troubles that Henry goes through when he meet's a new girl in school, working beside her during lunch, handing out meals to the other children before sharing their own in the back.
Written beautifully, Ford manages to weave a tale of heartache and adventure in between the trials of American life during the 40's for families of a different race, of how they were treated, looked upon as dirt. We see how friendships can grow between children who go against most other things. We see the trouble and the hardships of finding their way, of promises that are kept and which are broken. We see missed chances and chances taken, of first loves and disagreements between parents.
But most of all, we see the fighting spirit that grows within Henry and that of Keiko, from their first meetings to their last moments together and in between. Of a friendship that defies the norm at the time period.
A touching story that focuses on a part of American history that I'm sure America would like to forget about, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet leads us through the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the interment camps that Japanese and Japanese-American families were rounded up in to, leaving their lives, businesses and nearly all their belongings behind. The book is a sweet take on the history, of weaving together a tale of lost chances and missed beginnings between a Chinese-American boy and an Japanese-American Girl. We start with Henry as an aging adult, swept in the tide of onlookers that moves to the hotel which once sat in the Japanese part of Seattle. Where, decades later, old trunks and belongings of Japanese families have been found in the basement, locked away in a time capsule that leads Henry back down memory lane and in to thoughts and emotions and in search of answers and most of all, a scared record.
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