Whatcom Women discussion
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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
What did you think
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Darcy
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rated it 5 stars
Mar 31, 2013 10:18PM
Kayte - and other Whatcom Women....now that you have read the book, I want to know what you really thought! Did it feel like a kind of Seattle you have met? What did you think of the people/ characters?could it have happened in any city in the world? Any City in North America? During any major War of the 20/21st Century? Did it feel like real people/ Characters? Some books seem to live in a precise time and place, where others could be picked up and transplanted without much affect. For those readers who haven't always lived in the PNW= Would you consider this a northwest novel only because it was placed there- or does it have a strong sense of written by / speaking through a NW voice/ or give an embience of climate or scene that is particularly of Western Washington....Did the characters have a particular sense of pnw culture or seem more general and universal? Could this have been a rainy,port city with immigration and War trauma like Amsterdam? Are there elements to this book that cause you to want to read more/ do research?
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Sorry for the late response. Some tough questions Darcy ;) I love it. I did feel it portrayed the Seattle I and PNW that I came to know. The Characters were realistically flawed and hung unto their pride throughout which I found to be most honest. I think the Kiko and Henry did display a sense of PNW culture and attitude as they wished to blend in but in their own way.
I think with a little imagainating this could have been set in a different coastly city of the US but not outisde. Kiko and Henry's desire to be seen as AMERICAN and the wish to assimilate into the culture would not have translated as easily if placed in a different country. My observation of immigrants to other countries does not fit the American immigrants desire to assimilate and be seen as a part of the whole as much. For example if Kiko had been in Amsterdam I don't think even as a 3rd generation she would identify so greatly as Dutch over Japanese. I think this topic is uniquely American in the way in which immigration is address and what it means to be a citizen of the country in which one has immigrated to at this time.
What are you thoughts?
