At first I was only going to give this book a 3 star. But it really started to pick up about 2/3 of the way through, and so I upgraded it to 4 stars. Can I also say, that I give special stars that look like bars of soap to Mr. Ford. For a book about a bordello in the early 1900's, it was super clean.
-Here are the awesome sauce points for Love and Other Consolation Prizes: It is riddled with obvious true historical facts about Seattle, it shows a multi-cultural perspective, the "love triangle" is not sappy, and he mentioned the Leavenworth Echo (a newspaper) in his author notes (my parents and family are from there).
-Here are the not so awesome sauce points: It was a little hard to get into at the beginning, I had to remember people from the the beginning to the end (although there were great clues to rehash the memory, so thank you, Mr. Ford), and finally, it made me want to go to Seattle and purvey all the streets and buildings mentioned.
-Here is the short summary: Ernest Young (his name when he came to the US) had been shifted from place to place after his mother sent him from China as she could not care for him. The moral, upstanding Pharisee named Mrs. Irving auctioned him off at the World's Fair, and he was won by a brothel. It was a good thing for him, as it was an upscale brothel and he found a new family. But make no mistake, despite the fact that the ladies were fairly protected with their gentlemen, the career was ultimately not glamorized. Ernest falls in love with a couple of young ladies. As the story shifts to the 1960's and Ernest reminisces with his wife, the reader doesn't know which young lady becomes his wife. We do find out, though, which is good because otherwise I would have been mad.