Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford

Henry is 12 years old in the early 1940s, being raised in Chinatown in Seattle.  His father is obsessed with the war and having Henry grow up American.  He attends a white school, where he is mostly ignored by the other kids there.  Until Keiko arrives, a Japanese American girl who feels just as out of place as Henry.  The two form a fast bond, and when Keiko and her family are evacuated to the internment camps.  Henry manages to visit Keiko, but soon the two lose touch.  Forty years later, Henry watches as the Panama Hotel, the gateway to Seattle's Japantown, discovers the belongings of all those evacuated Japanese families in its basement.  And soon Henry is caught up in his memories of Keiko and his need to find her belongings in that basement.

This book has been on my list for a long time.  I am so glad I finally got around to reading it because - wow.  It was amazing.  The reader is caught up in two mysteries:  What will happen to young Henry and Keiko? and Will older Henry find Keiko?  I won't give anything away, because I'm not all spoilery like that, but you NEED to read this book.  It's a great story of a young boy trying to find out where he belongs in his school, his neighborhood, even his own family.  Even forty years later, Henry is still trying to find his place, determined to be a different type of father for his own son, but not really knowing how to do that.  The opening of the Panama Hotel helps Henry to open up his own life.

This is really an amazing book.  I got mine for Kindle on Amazon for $5.