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Liked It3 of 3 members found this review helpful “This is a remarkably human love story, so real and effortlessly captured in the graceful prose and simple detail of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Taking place in Seattle during WWII, two young kids, one of Chinese decent and one of Japanese decent, become friends while working off...” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“I liked this book. it was a good story with good characters and a good ending. ”
Noelle T wrote this review 2 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I havent started it yet, but i will start it today.”
Cindy C wrote this review 3 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I first heard this book as part of an experiment with my new mp3 player. I really enjoyed the story, particularly the concept of talking about the Japanese Internment from the point of view of a Chinese boy. There is an interesting switch in time periods from 1940's Seattle, and that of Seattle in the late 1980's. It is a story of hope, tenacity, and forgiveness that deals with lost love, culture clashes, modern jazz, stereotyping, racism and an ugly moment in American history.
Nancy J wrote this review 3 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I hope to use this with my 8th grade class next year.”
“This was a fabulous book on CD. I really enjoyed the story and the narrarator was fantastic. I highly recommend it. ”
Carrie F wrote this review 3 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“It was good, but verged on too trite. Story of Japanese internment during WWII and a Chinese boy's unrequited love for a Japanese girl”
ML wrote this review 3 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Much different view of an oft treated subject. ”
Marcia Z wrote this review 8 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“This was one of the best books I've read in long time. It's a love story, but it's not sappy. It met my principal criteria of having interesting characters that I can relate to. Although it's focus is on the US interment of Japanese citizens in WWII, there are a lot of parallels with today's environment of fear toward targeted ethnic groups.”
Diane P wrote this review 8 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Steve Leveen wrote this review 2 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Recommended for Read Together Palm Beach County, 2010
21 December 02009
by Steve Leveen, CEO Levenger, Blogger for Huffington Post Books
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15939353@N00/sets/72157622988013278/
I’m not recommending On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet because of its power to convey history, though it has that power. In its pages you don’t merely learn about the Japanese internment camps of World War Two, you feel them. You feel the injustice of imprisoning innocent people, but also feel the tension of the time—the chilling Pearl-Harbor fear that swept the nation and particularly the west coast, including Seattle, the setting for this novel, after the famously infamous attack. Jamie Ford, in his first novel, displays a seemingly easy talent for making history as unexpected as it actually was. We see Nihonmachi, Japantown, before and after the relocation, including the enigmatic Panama Hotel. We meet young Henry Lee, a twelve-year old, first-generation Chinese boy who his parents literally label, in order to save him from being mistaken as Japanese.
Henry’s on scholarship to a white school, requiring officially that he work in the kitchen, and unofficially, that he withstand the fists and taunts of his mainstream classmates. There he meets another scholarship kid, also assigned to kitchen duty, a Japanese girl. And we’re off to an old, but ever-new love story set in a world at war.
Nor am I recommending On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet because it raises enduring issues, though it does. Must my father’s enemy be my enemy? Can immigrants ever really understand their first-generation children, and they their parents? When does normal parental guidance become unhealthy coercion? What is the right path when heart and duty point in opposite directions? Would you ever go to war for a country that imprisoned you? That stole your property? That damaged the people you love the most?
No, I am recommending On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet because it is a work of art. Somewhere amidst the fluttering photographs, the boarded up buildings and the jazz spilling from segregated nightclubs out onto wet Seattle streets, I realized that this novel is one of those works of fiction that becomes literature. I might use words such as magical, moving, transcending and other such words people use to describe art, but like others, I would fail—fail to convey by other means an experience that must be had. I recommend On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet because experiencing art feels good in ways we can’t describe.
--Steve Leveen
Postscript: On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is available in paperback, hardcover, digital and audio. I listened to Feodor Chin narrate the unabridged audiobook and loved his voices for the young hero and heroine, as well as the many adults of diverse ethnicity. I also bought the beautiful hardcover, which I wrote in, and then photographed, before passing the book to my own sons.
”“easy fast read”
Rickie B wrote this review 12 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“An emotionally quiet story of forbidden love between a young Chinese boy and Japanese girl just before and during the Japanese Internment on the west coast after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Henry is a likable but not very expressive character. The narrative switches from the 1940s to 1986 when a widowed Henry finds the belongings of Japanese families stored in an abandoned neighborhood hotel, rekindling his bittersweet feelings for Keiko. Perhaps more interesting is the depiction of Henry as the son of a father he does not understand with the adult Henry, father to a son whom he does not understand. Similar in tone and subject to Snow Falling on Cedars. Deliberate pace and detailed description.”
bookappeal wrote this review 12 days ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
