Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Title: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Author:  Jamie Ford
# of pages:  285
Genre:  Historical Fiction

This was definitely a "page-turner"!  This is a story about a young Chinese boy who fell in love with a young Japanese girl.  Both lived in America, but the Japanese were at war.  The Japanese had already bombed Pearl Harbor and were not well liked.  The boy, Henry, met the girl, Keiko, in grade school.  They became great friends then Keiko, her family, and the rest of the Japanese people living in Japantown in Seattle were shipped off to internment camps.  Henry was devastated.  Henry ends up marrying a Chinese girl, Ethel, and has a family.  His family is very pleased about this!  Ethel passes away and Henry is reminiscing about his first love, Keiko.  He actually thought of Keiko during his marriage to Ethel.  Technically, he never stopped thinking about his first love as a 12 year old boy. 

The story takes you back and forth from the present to the past.  You get so caught up in this story, that the transitions are so easy to follow.  The questions you ponder:  Will Henry ever reconnect with his lost love after 40 years?  Is Keiko still alive and if so, where is she?  Where does he begin to solve this puzzle? 

The title of this book is in reference to the "hotel" that Keiko and her family resided in before they were shipped away.  "Bitter" and "Sweet" describe the relationship of Henry and Keiko.  "Sweet" describes their friendship at school. "Bitter" describes the separation they encountered due to Keiko’s ethnic background.  Despite the fact that Keiko and Henry were both born in America, they were regarded as "Japanese" and "Chinese/chink" by the the majority of the citizens in Seattle.

If you want a good, wholesome story, I would recommend this book.

j8xmom