This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
REVIEWED BY AMANDA KEATS
Review – Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
In 1986, Henry is dealing with the recent death of his beloved wife and distant relationship with his son Marty. But on a walk past the Panama Hotel he sees a Japanese parasol opened and is transported back to his childhood in the 1940s during World War Two. As a child, Henry was the only Chinese boy in a school full of white faces and forged an enduring friendship with Keiko, a Japanese American also forced to endure the constant remarks from her schoolmates about being foreign, even though she doesn't speak a word of Japanese.
Life is confusing for Henry. At 12 years old, he has been sent to this particular school so he can “speak American” even though his parents don't speak English, banned from speaking Chinese entirely resulting in a very quite household and yet his father insists he wears a badge which says “I am Chinese” at all times. His father wants him to show national pride for China but to be American. To his father, a native Chinese man, the Japanese were and always will be the enemy – even if they come in the form of a 12 year old Japanese girl who was born in the USA.
And it is not just Henry's father that plans to break them apart. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans are deemed a threat to national security and are evacuated out of their homes and into camps far away, a military operation which neither has the power to stop.
With the help of Henry's only other friend, the saxophone playing Sheldon, he embarks on a rough and often painful journey into adulthood, forced to endure the rules of his father and the ridicule of his peers along with wartime rations and prejudice.
But for the older Henry, telling his son about this secret he has kept his entire adult life opens a gateway to a past he has never been able to forget. And perhaps the end is not yet written to his story.
The book jumps seamlessly between eras, showing with great clarity the differences in tradition and societal norms. Jamie Ford is a superb talent as evident in his evocative and moving writing. Incredibly beautiful. But you have to like that sort of thing to appreciate it. The only negative I can say about it is that there really isn't any crossover potential. If you like wartime romances with stolen glances and traditions of another time, this is the book for you. If you don't then simply put – you won't like it. Each to their own.
8/10