book reviews in my unprofessional and layperson opinion

Last month I read three different books that all took place during or just following WWII (this was inadvertent).



Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

In 1942, a 12-year-old, Chinese American boy falls in love with a Japanese American girl named Keiko at a private school in Seattle, Washington, where they have both won "scholarships" to attend. This story chronicles the relationship that develops between them just before and during her family's imprisonment in the Japanese internment camps at that time. Sometimes we forget that this happened during the war and is perhaps a shameful part of American history.

This book made me think about my Japanese grandmother. She married my American grandfather when he was stationed over in Japan just after WWII. And I sometimes wonder about prejudices she may have experienced and felt from others when he brought her back over to the States. I also loved all the food descriptions in this book and have been dying for dim sum ever since.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusack

Again, this story takes place during WWII in Nazi Germany. Death is the narrator, but he is not holding a scythe or flaunting pride in what he does. Death is tired, weary and frightened of humans. And he is strangely fascinated by a little German girl, named Liesel.

Death is concise, to-the-point, accidentally humorous, and sometimes even tells the end before the beginning because he's just too tired to mince words. But that is a small irony of the book, because who doesn't know what happens to Nazi Germany? A few of his descriptions might be a few of my favorites of all time, such as: "Pimples were gathered in peer groups on his face."

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows

This might have been my favorite of the three. But I also have a thing for British authors and their literary sense of humor (British TV and British food - not so much). But on paper? Hysterical.

Juliet Ashton is the 30-something Londoner and heroine of this novel that is comprised almost entirely of letters between her and her publisher, her friends, her acquaintances, her suitors, and her haters. Set in the time period just following WWII, it gives a small glimpse into what it might have been like to adjust back to life in England just following a world war. She also begins correspondence with a diverse group of people (also known as the The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) from the British island of Guernsey that had been occupied by the Germans during the war. She even falls in love, and maybe I love him, too.

If Juliet and I had met (and she was, in fact, real and not a figment of some British lady's imagination), I feel certain we would be best friends.

So if you're looking for a book...

Also, if you don't mind, communicate and commentate your latest read and make me wish a Barnes and Noble existed here.