Bittersweet, Indeed

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is the debut novel by Jamie Ford that tells the story of a Chinese-American boy who befriends a Japanese-American girl with whom he attends a mostly-white private school in Seattle during World War II. Keiko, the young girl, eventually gets interned along with her family as part of the federal government’s mass roundup of any persons of Japanese descent. The boy Henry defies parental orders, societal norms, miles of separation, and years apart, ultimately, to remain connected to his childhood love.

I’m encroaching on a professional reviewer’s remarks when I say that this book was both bitter and sweet for me. I so desperately wanted to love it: Ford’s description of the wartime persecution of American citizens by their own country is a cautionary tale worthy of being told and retold (not to mention something that resonates deeply with someone, like me, with Japanese ties), his examinations into the relationships we’re born into and choose for ourselves are fraught with possibilities for readers, and because his book is a finalist for my university’s 2013 summer reading program. (The other two finalists, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles and Outcasts United, were excellent.)

Well, it accomplishes the first artfully, misses somewhat on the second point, and we’re waiting and seeing on the third. Ford’s prose is predictable and often cliché, which hampers much of the human-interest story. The sweet parts are the moments shared—albeit predictable and cliché—between Henry and Keiko, and overarching message that love shines brighter than the dark forces of prejudice, hate, and injustice.