Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Book Description

Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Review

Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet hit me right in the heart.

It’s a beautiful historical novel set in Seattle during World War II. It explores love, family, and identity in the middle of racial tension.

The story follows Henry Lee, a Chinese-American boy, as he forms a deep bond with Keiko Okabe, a Japanese-American girl. Keiko’s young life is torn apart when the government sends her family to an internment camp. Ford does an incredible job bringing Seattle’s Nihonmachi (Japan Town) and Chinatown to life. You can practically feel the rain and smell the noodles.

As someone who’s half Japanese and lives in the Seattle area, this book felt deeply personal. The scenes of Henry walking through Nihonmachi, and his trips to the Puyallup fairgrounds, hit me viscerally. Throughout the novel, I felt the weight of our history. Our loss. It was like someone telling me pieces of my family’s history, even though my father moved here long after the war ended. Still, the story echoed my sense of cultural identity.

The Past Isn’t Over

It’s one thing to read about history in a textbook; it’s another to feel it through a character’s eyes. Scars from that era still linger in the Seattle area. While several Japanese businesses survived Executive Order 9066, the piece of Nihonmachi that remains in Seattle is a whisper of what it was prior to the war.

Reading Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet made me think about American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. Although American Dirt tackles displacement and survival from a different angle, both books explore themes of identity and belonging.

But where American Dirt delivered a heart pounding pace, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet felt more intimate. It focused more on quiet moments of connection and heartbreak. Ford’s novel stands out for its emotional depth. I loved it for its tender exploration of love and resilience in the face of injustice.

If you enjoy historical fiction that’s rich with emotion and cultural history, this one’s for you. Fans of books like Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson or The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah will find a lot to love here. And if you are someone who appreciates stories about quiet, human connections against the backdrop of larger historical events, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Content Warning

Bullying, Cancer, Confinement, Death, Forced Institutionalization, Grief, Racial Slurs, Racism, War, Xenophobia

The header photo is a composite image. Base image by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash