Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet in Retro Chapter Chicks

May 18, 2022 Celia rated it really liked it

Shelves: wwii, historical-fiction-read

Read in 2014, this is one of the first historical fiction novels I read upon restarting (with a vengeance) my 'reading career'. I have always loved to read, but a time-consuming career kept me from pursuing any significant reading. Then I found Goodreads and reading good books became a #1 priority.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an historical novel by Jamie Ford. The story is told in two parallel storylines, one following 12-year-old Henry Lee's experiences during the Second World War ...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Tasha rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, ww2-stories

I'm embarrassed to say that I had never heard of the fact that US citizens (and some immigrants) were interred in camps in America! What a shocker. This book presents this sad event while following the story of 2 young and innocent children caught up in the politics and wars of the nations. It was beautifully done and kept me curious to see how this would all turn out in the end, years later. I learned a good bit about the Chinese/Japanese relations among their respective groups and the attitude ...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Book Concierge rated it liked it

Shelves: concierge, world-war-ii, library, culture, historical-fiction, own

3.5***

Henry Lee, a 12-year-old Chinese American, has only one friend at Rainier elementary school in 1942 Seattle. She is his fellow cafeteria worker/scholarship student – Keiko Okabe – a second-generation Japanese American. The events of World War II will greatly affect these two young people, on the cusp between childhood friendship and teenage love. Fast forward to 1986 Seattle, where Henry has recently lost his wife, Ethel, to cancer. When the Panama Hotel’s new owner begins renovations to r ...more

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Mar 21, 2023 Theresa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: debut, historical-fiction, z-aty-2023, highly-recommended-by-me, coming-of-age, theater-film-music, dragons-spotted-in-the-wild, art-as-subject-background-theme, immigrant-experience, east-asia

This beautiful story had the Irish Waterworks flowing liberally through much of the book - emotional, bittersweet, heart-felt tears, the kind that are just the sort of tears you need without realizing it. Gratitude to the author for enriching this story of love, family, loss and devotion with authentically presented historic background of the WWII Japanese Internments.

The story is centered on Seattle and Henry, who is Chinese American, primarly during 1942 when he was 12 and 40+ years later, in This beautiful story had the Irish Waterworks flowing liberally through much of the book - emotional, bittersweet, heart-felt tears, the kind that are just the sort of tears you need without realizing it. Gratitude to the author for enriching this story of love, family, loss and devotion with authentically presented historic background of the WWII Japanese Internments.

The story is centered on Seattle and Henry, who is Chinese American, primarly during 1942 when he was 12 and 40+ years later, in 1986, when he finds himself in front of the Panama Hotel the day it is revealed to the world that belongings were found in the basement that had been stored there in 1942 by multiple Japanese families sent to internment camps. This event, btw, is a real one and those found posessioins kept as a museum. Henry is a widower, just starting to find his way out of mourning and years of being the caregiver to his ailing wife. He's a little lost, and then, he finds himself before the Hotel Panama and pulled to search those possessions for those belonging to the Okado family, particularly those of Keiko, the Japanese American girl who was his best friend and first love during the traumatic time after Pearl Harbor.

From here, the chapters move between young Henry and Keiko as they navigate the fear, upheavals, and racism of those war years, and Henry in 1986. It's a story rich with secondary characters (Mrs. Beatty and Sheldon may be my favorites), location, period, and themes. Besides friendship, there is love in many guises - first love, marital love, parental love, filial love. Devotion is prominent. There is pride, loyalty and patriotism, and the struggle to understand why a person's or family's original heritage can make them suddenly not accepted as an American (something we continue to struggle with to this day). On these pages one also finds the conflict between immigrant parents and their American born children to whom the old world traditions are burdensome. Coming of age features prominantly, as do the relationships between fathers and sons. All of it is woven into a brilliant tapestry of a time too long ignored.

I want to mention how much I enjoyed the incorporation of the Seattle jazz world into the storyline - where greats like Ray Charles got their first professional start.

I read the 10th Anniversary edition which included a lovely short story featuring Keiko from the year before the events here. There is also an interesting author interview and a story and interview about the frontispiece photo of a family enroute to an internment camp taken by Dorothy Lange. Well worth seeking out that edition from 2018 to read. I now intend to find some of his short stories as he's written ones set in this time and ones featuring Mrs. Beatty and Sheldon. There are stories there and they are great characters.

I also recommend this as an excellent companion read to Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara which is set in California, Manzanar, and Chicago. ...more

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Mar 26, 2017 Phair rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, dual-timeline

It took me a little while to get into this ... it's one of those cases where you know what's coming and you don't look forward to getting there. Eventually I became invested in the story and found it very moving. I know it caused me to hit the tissue box more than once. I appreciated the way it ended. As the author says in the interview at the back of my paperback edition "... the ending is all-important for me. And by ending I mean a real, unambiguous, nonmetaphorical ending." Amen to that. Not ...more

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