Skip to main content

Review - Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Jamie Ford
Ballantine 
I had the pleasure of meeting author Jamie Ford on his recent book tour through the Pacific Northwest and wanted to spread the word about his fantastic first novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Last week, Hotel reached the New York Times list and is currently in a fifth printing.

This book is a classic love story against a much larger story (the removal of the Japanese from Seattle during World War II) and this simple, lyrical, haunting, and beautiful story will stick with you. I don’t give away endings, but it’s something worth reading the book for.

In the flashbacks, the protagonist, Henry Lee, twelve years old, is Chinese, but it’s 1942 and the folks living on the West Coast of the United States are feeling just a bit vulnerable. When Henry’s staunchly nationalistic father pins an “I am Chinese” button to his son’s shirt and enrolls him in an all-white prep school, Henry finds himself friendless and at the mercy of schoolyard bullies. His salvation arrives in the form of Keiko, a Japanese girl with whom Henry forms an instant—and forbidden—bond. As their friendship forms, the backdrop of early 1940s Seattle comes to life, complete with jazz greats playing the international district’s most lively bars and restaurants. It’s this music that becomes the greatest tangible evidence that their friendship existed. 

In real-time (mid-1980s), Henry relives the loss of his friend, Keiko after the surprise discovery in the basement of a shut-up hotel the belongings of several Japanese families who were evacuated in 1942. As he remembers, we see the experiences through his childhood eyes and we know, instantly, the trauma of war, as well as the unsettling relocation for thousands of Americans who looked too much like the enemy. 

I couldn’t put this book down and when it ended, I felt as if the author had handed the world a gift. A memory of a time when the world quivered under the pressure of war, treachery, and death, and how two young children’s lives (along with so many others) would never quite be the same again.

Guest blogger bio: Trish Lawrence is an editor, writer, and social media addict, and blogs about her writing life (and the social media it often includes) at http://www.trishlawrence.com/blog


______________________________________________________________________
If you like this post, then please consider subscribing to my Full Feed RSS.
You can also Subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading! Don't forget to like, subscribe and comment...

Popular posts from this blog

Gabrielle Bernstein stops by...

I'm happy to welcome Gabrielle Bernstein who's once again stopping by here with a guest blog post. Her second book Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Self-Love and Miracles  was published by Random House September 12. It’s part memoir and part road map: Gabby shares her journey toward becoming the full-on, inspirational Spirit Junkie that she is today, and she teaches her readers every lesson she learned along the way. BECOME A SPIRIT JUNKIE

Gerard de Marigny stops by...

Today I'm happy to welcome Gerard de Marigny , author of The Watchman of Ephraim , who's guest blogging here today. About the Book - Aref Sami Zamani is planning a terrorist attack on American soil - codenamed "Antioch," a plot to detonate a nuke over the city of Las Vegas. The Watchman uncovers a connection between Zamani and a Mexican drug cartel but their agent goes missing before they can learn more. That's because Zamani has a spy working for The Watchman. Strange events start to unfold near the Nogales border crossing. References are discovered to something the Mexicans are calling "Noche Del Espantada" ...Fright Night," but can it mean something else? Why I Write Thrillers

Review - Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer

Sourcebooks Casablanca, 368p, ISBN:1402238797 To say that the beautiful and tempestuous Lady Serena is highly upset to find that her recently deceased (and highly eccentric) father, the Earl of Spenborough, left the care of her fortune and control over her marriage to her jilted fiancé Ivo Barrasford, the Marquis of Rotherham, is to understate the case. Too much time has elapsed since Serena broke her engagement to her childhood companion, Rotherham, (and that too after the invitations had been sent - such a scandal !) for them to feel anything but discomfort at this bit of posthumous matchmaking on the part of the Earl. Or so they both declare. Used to commanding a large household and having acted as her father's hostess from a young age, energetic and politically-savvy Serena soon finds herself in doldrums when her life is suddenly reduced to a small Dower house with none but her father's young widow, Fanny, for company and a social sphere consisting of occasional visi