Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by Jaime Ford
304 pages
Ballantine Books
(January 27, 2009)
In Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jaime Ford creates not just a book about the issues surrounding the Japanese living in the US. during the relocation period of WWII, but he creates an entrancing and dynamic family and ethic relationship, by the end of which your nails will be bitten down to stubs. This is a novel, based on the historical facts of treatment of Japanese immigrants (including those of Japanese ancestry) who were living in the Seattle area during that period, but it would be so bland to let it lie there. Yes, it would, that is just the historical backdrop for a tale that is so much deeper, and more personable.
Henry, the son of Chinese immigrants befriends a lovely American girl of Japanese ancestry. Although she is a second generation American, and does not speak Japanese, she is the enemy not just to other Americans, but to Henry's father as well. He grew up in China at war with Japan and holds on to incidences of mistreatment towards his own people in the hands of the Japanese against Keiko. Through years of stubbornness, dominion and silence Henry learns to find his own way of surviving, of thinking and feeling. He comes to the understanding that what is most important is that he look out for those he loves, no matter what.
The things that really allowed me to immerse myself in Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet were the deep relationships, the strong writing of Jaime Ford, my love of all thins Japanese, that I am completely interested in history, that the book is based in the Northwestern United States (where I live), and the depth of the characters. I loved Henry, Keiko, Sheldon, Marty and well, I guess actually each of the characters, even the ones with bitterness and regret. I somehow felt like I understood their actions, their mindset and although not in agreement with them I could see through the words on the page to people of flesh and bone.
It is a love story in so many ways but not just a fleeting romantic love, but a love that stands the time it takes to reach it, and that spoke to me. It is the story of first love, and the story of a love that endures and is faithful, the story of love between father and son, mother and son. It never felt gushy to me, but I am a girl so hold that lightly. I don't know...I guess you'll just have to read it, and I really hope that you will because this was a STELLAR FIVE CHICKEN BOOK! I guess that means that Jaime Ford has to do a happy chicken dance? 
Here are some pictures of posters that were plastered on all the walls in the Japanese section of Seattle in the 1940's:
Newspapers showing headlines written during the displacement of the Japanese people:
Rounding them up and putting them on trains headed to 'inland' camps (supposedly for THEIR own protection!):
Trailer by Jaime Ford about his book, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet:
Trailer on the historical background of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet:
The Book Thief
Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Pages: 560
Genre: YA Literature, Holocaust
Yearly Count: 10
A Happy Chicken Award Winner!
I knew this was going to be good before I started reading it. Sometimes that makes me jaded and I don't enjoy a book as much as I could have, it is almost as if it has been ruined by expectations of how it was going to be good and if it isn't good in those ways I am let down and disappointed. The Book Thief was good enough, in all areas that that wasn't a problem, it was well rounded and real, honest and humble and yet Zusak took those leaps that jumped it into greatness. It could have been just good, it covered a strong subject matter and that could have been just good enough, but I felt he pushed beyond all that and catapulted The Book Thief to go down in history.
I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so cover your ears and hum if you want to read this and you haven't read it yet. No, I won't spoil it. But one thing that I can tell you is that the omniscient narrator is death, or an angel of death. I thought that sounded too spooky before reading it but it really isn't. It is real, it is life- that death comes to us all.
Spoiler
I couldn't and still cannot get over the ending, or the last phrase in the book, "I am haunted by humans" (p. 550) I loved what this conveyed to me, what it made me understand. Several times throughout the book the narrator speaks of thinks that should be beautiful as ugly, and he uses the word 'ugly' in strange ways throughout The Book Thief. I came to understand thoguh, that this last phrase of the book is both good and bad, he is haunted by our beauty and attracted to the good that we can do, and also by the harm we cause each other, the pain.
Death is what we tend to fear, death is scary and cold but for me the point of the book was that what are fellow humans can do to us is worse than death, worse than uncertainty. I thought it was also interesting because death is attracted to humans, he has a job in life and has a need to perform when death comes to people, he is programmed and just does that. The beautiful side of humans is that we do have a free choice, a will and we get to make the call between walking in beauty and walking in brutality. It makes both extremes so much more severe because we do not HAVE to do either, we choose good, or bad and our choices affect those around us even if we don't want them to.
Spoiler end
The perfect ending to me is that which Zusak leaves unsaid- to have an ending where you just close the book sit in silence and think of all the immensity of it all. That is what a good book, great book should do to you. That is why I believe The Book Thief is one of the best books I have ever read, I'd say in my top 5 now. And that is saying a lot coming from me, since I abhor jumping on any sort of bandwagon. Heaven help me!
What about you do you automatically try to dislike things that EVERYONE else likes? Or do you just not read them or watch them? I still haven't seen the Titanic (yep the one with Leo DiCaprio) I am stubborn, and the only reason I haven't see it is that, well I didn't want to jump on that bandwagon!! (I was much more hardcore in high school!) Do you do that or is it just me?
I give it my biggest two thumbs up, the happy chicken award.
