162. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Rating: ☆☆☆1/2
Recommended by:
Author: Jamie Ford
Genre: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance, World War II
290 pages, published January 27, 2009
Reading Format: Book
Summary
The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is set in World War II era Seattle and tells the story of two star-crossed lovers (well actually friends who love each other): Henry Lee, a 13 year old Chinese kid whose father is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American , and Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American girl whose parents are proud to be American but are becoming increasingly worried after war breaks out with Japan. Both Henry and Keiko are “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary school where the two outcasts find each other while working together in the school cafeteria. When the internment of American-Japanese families begins, Henry and Keiko are torn apart. Fate separates them until forty years later, when newly widowed Henry contemplates finding his first true love.
Quotes
“The hardest choices in life aren’t between what’s right and what’s wrong but between what’s right and what’s best.”
“He’d do what he always did, find the sweet among the bitter.”
“Henry was learning that time apart has a way of creating distance- more than mountains and time zone separating them. Real distance, the kind that makes you ache and stop wondering. Longing so bad that it begins to hurt to care so much.”
“I had my chance.’ He said it, retiring from a lifetime of wanting. ‘I had my chance, and sometimes in life, there are no second chances. You look at what you have, not what you miss, and you move forward.”
“But choosing to lovingly care for her was like steering a plane into a mountain as gently as possible. The crash is imminent; it’s how you spend your time on the way down that counts.”
“I try not to live in the past, he thought, but who knows, sometimes the past lives in me.”
“The waitress brought a fresh pot of tea, and Marty refilled his father’s cup and poured a cup for Samantha. Henry in turn filled Marty’s. It was a tradition Henry cherished—never filling your own cup, always filling that of someone else, who would return the favor.”
My Take
The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a quick and enjoyable read that does a fine job of demonstrating the staggering impact of the World War II internment on the Japanese families who were forced to abandon their homes, businesses and lives. The characters are engaging and provide a sweet lens through which to view a historical atrocity.
