Bibliofreakblog

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

The Panama Hotel, the hotel in question in this book, is located in the International District, in Seattle, my adopted city.  I’d heard of it before, but never given it much thought.

Other places mentioned in the book gave me a small thrill to read about: House of Hong (just went there for Dim Sum on Saturday!), Kau Kau (been there many times!), Uwagimaya (shopped there!), The Seattle Weekly (The Stranger is better!), Bainbridge ferry (my husband used to take it to work!).

Unfortunately, I have to wonder if it was all of the Seattle references that excited me so much.  

The story itself was almost unbearably predictable.  And if weren’t so goddamn sweet, I don’t know if I could have gotten through it.

I’ll say one thing about the sweetness: I actually didn’t find it overbearing.  Jamie Ford does a good job of telling the story plainly (perhaps too plainly, as we can see it all laid out in the beginning chapters), never layering on unnecessary sappiness.

The story follows two kids from Seattle’s International district in the 1940’s.  Well, more accurately, a boy from Chinatown, and a girl from Niponmachi, Japantown (of course, now there’s so many Vietnamese, Thai, Laotian, Korean, Filipino, etc., places, we mostly just call it the ID–International District).  The only Asian kids at an all white prep school, they form a special bond.  

But, like I said, it’s the 1940’s, and she’s Japanese, so you know where this is going.

However, the narrative skips back and forth between then and the 1980’s.  The Chinese boy has grown up, and his wife has recently passed away.  He has a strained relationship with his son, who he tells about his old Japanese girlfriend.

I mean, is this only obvious to me?

Whatever.  It was a sweet story, and had a lot of Seattle references, and made me think about the mindset of people who supported–actually SUPPORTED–Japanese internment.  And I learned a lot about the history of the International District.  

Yo FTC!  I received this book as part of a TLC Blog Tour.  For more info on the tour, check out TLC’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet page.

 
Buy Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet on Amazon

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)

Hawaii by James Michener
Flight by Sherman Alexie
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Seattle’s Historic Hotels by Robin Shannon
Vanishing Seattle by Clark Humphrey
Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People by Helen Zia
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Other works by Jamie Ford:

none

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