Thursday 24 May 2012

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

This book had been on my wish list for a long time.  I remember seeing positive reviews of it last year and placed a hold on it in October 2011.  As my library system owns just one copy of the book, it was only last week, almost seven months later, that I got my hands on it.  It was consequently under a lot of pressure to perform!

Hotel On The Corner of Bitter and Sweet starts with the discovery of property belonging to Japanese American citizens in the basement of a Seattle hotel.  Watching this discovery is Henry Lee, a Chinese American who was only a child when World War Two began.  The items take him back to his school days, in which he struck up an unlikely friendship with Japanese Keiko Okabe, the only other Asian student at his expensive school.  Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet traces their friendship through family disapproval, internment camps for the Japanese and the end of the war.  Does Henry have to live with only regret?

I had such a mixed reaction to this book.  To start with the positives, it was definitely an engrossing reading experience.  Whilst the initial section was perhaps a bit slow, things soon picked up and I found myself reluctant to put the book down and go to sleep each night. I knew very little about the treatment of Japanese citizens during World War Two in America, so I found these parts fascinating to read.  There are parallels with other kinds of camps, but Ford does it all with a light touch.  The two main characters of Henry and Keiko are easy to relate to and their relationship is written just right for their age and situation.  I was hoping for a happy ending.

But I did have one big issue with the book and that was it's lack of depth.  Yes Ford is writing about something that not too many people know about, but he does so only shallowly.  At times Hotel on the Corner of Bitter Sweet was more about the tragic romance of the two characters than anything else.  Now, I don't mind that if it's done well, but I wanted to know more about the camps and about Keiko's family.  How did her father really feel?  I don't mean this as harshly as it sounds, but it was a bit like a Nicholas Sparks novel with an unusual backdrop.

And whilst Henry and Keiko were well drawn, substantial characters, the same couldn't be said for the rest of the cast.  Henry's future daughter in law Samantha was just too perfect to be believable, as was the whole Okabe family.  They really had no opinion on their daughter being so close to a Chinese boy, accepting him almost as a member of the family from the moment they met him?

I don't want to be too negative about the book as I did have a positive experience reading it.  It's just that the experience was sort of shallow, it won't stay with me for long.

Source: Library
First Published: 2009
Score: 3 out of 5

17 comments:

  1. When I first heard about this book I really wanted to read it, but I read a bunch of reviews which, like yours, pointed out that they wanted more depth and detail so I never bothered to pick it up. It still sounds like something I might enjoy but I've just never jumped it to the top of my list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad other people had the same reaction to me. I think I was expecting more than the book could deliver.

      Delete
  2. I enjoyed this one much more than you did, but I agree that there could have been more detail about the camps.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I enjoyed it whilst reading it, I just don't think it will be one that will stick in my memory.

      Delete
  3. This one was a "One City, One Book" in the town where I live. The author came and spoke and everything and I still haven't read it. lol

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What is One City, One Book? Is everyone in the city supposed to read the same book? Bizarre!

      Delete
  4. Thanks for the warning. I was thinking of reading this (if only for the charming title), but if the focus is on romance I probably wouldn't care too much for it. The one time I read Nicolas Sparks on a train ride I almost threw the book out of the window...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The only Sparks book I have read is Dear John and I had a similar reaction to you! This was of course not as bad as a Sparks novel but did have many of the same elements.

      Delete
  5. I read this last year, in fact I have had to go back and see what I wrote about it. So that means it did not stay with me well either? I certainly looked upon this book as a history, as I knew nothing of this part of the Second World War at all, the historian in me would have liked to known more. The story set in the present time was the one for me which lacked the depth that the past did not.

    That said, I would recommend this book but can see how it might not be for everyone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This historian in me wanted to know more too, Jo, and I do think that the readers could have handled it. I liked the present day story, but then I am a big fan of dual narratives.

      Delete
  6. I loved this book! Great review though.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I loved this book although I was a little annoyed that the author made me curious about the whole internment camp thing and then left me and my curiosity to me. Well, maybe there are other books out there that would pick up more on the camps. Has anybody read them?

    Nonetheless I thoroughly enjoyed Keiko's and Henry's love story.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I read this with my daughter awhile back- she was probably 14 at the time. We really enjoyed it. It was probably just about right as an introduction to the bigotry going on on the homefront during the war and the whole Japanese interment camp nightmare. I agree it didn't delve very much into Keiko's experience of the camp. But it was a sweet and sad story, good for starting a conversation with her.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Seen this book everywhere I turned, I thought I may want to try it. After reading your review best give it a miss then. Thanks! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For something unique, you might want to consider The Sunset Key Guest Cottages (37 cottages), which are on a separate island that is a 10-minute boat ride from Duval Street.
      Hotels in Key West

      Delete
  10. That's how I felt about this book too. I knew about the Japanese internments, so the light treatment in this book was even more disappointing - I wanted to learn more! I was intrigued by the Japanese/Chinese relations, but even that was treated somewhat lightly. Sandra Dallas wrote a book (Tallgrass) about the internment camps, but it didn't go very deep either. It seems like it would be a subject that inspire a more complex novel.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I had the same experience as you with this one (I listened to the audio version) and was so disappointed. Have you read SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS by David Guterson? It has a similar topic but (IMHO) is a much better read.

    ReplyDelete