Reviews with content warning for Genocide - Pachinko

Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

21 reviews

jessiereads98's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This promised a sweeping epic of a multigenerational Korean family living in Japan and it delivered. Min Jin Lee’s writing is simplistic and effective. She’s created complex characters and gets the reader invested in their story. It’s truly impressive how the author manages such a large cast of characters and managed to flesh them all out into realistic people with differing morals existing in the same setting. This is a historical novel and Min Jin Lee has written it with realism for the time. She is also attempting to tackle themes of beauty and desire. That being said and understood, I didn’t enjoy the way female and disabled characters were described and treated in some ways in this novel. I don’t think it actually grappled with the beauty standards, sexism, and ableism of the time period so much as just said “this is how it was” in an objective way. I did still enjoy the novel overall, there were just some character treatments and descriptions I did not enjoy reading. The pacing of the last approx. 100 pages also came off as disjointed compared to the rest of the book which made it more difficult to be invested in the story.

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mlovesbooks's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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tahsintries's review against another edition

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4.0

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bandysbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a multi-generational story about a family. It starts in Korea, but moves to Japan and we see what the family goes through as they try to figure out their survival.

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jessgreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

Title: Pachinko

Author: Min Jin Lee

Genre: Historical Fiction

Setting: Busan, Korea / Osaka, Japan

Month Read: April 2022

Book Type: Hardcover

Publication: 2017

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Pages: 490

*Book of the Month Selection

TRIGGER WARNING-

Racism / Sexual Content / Suicide / Genocide / Murder / War / Misogyny / Abuse / Religious Persecution (there are more, these are the big ones)

"Fill your mind with knowledge—it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you."

No Spoiler Summary:

Pachinko is a multi-generational tale about a Korean family who moves/is displaced in Japan in the early 1900s. You follow Sunja through history to almost present-day, and also follow the tales of her family- her mother and father, her children, and those she forges familial relationships with throughout the novel.

You are taken through the arcs of history, from the Japanese invasion of Korea, to the Pachinko parlors of Osaka and beyond, where Koreans tried to make a living that would take themselves out of the raging, devastating poverty they experienced in their new land.

Review:

I'm so glad I finally got around to reading this truly fantastic novel. Sweeping, multi-generational (feminist?) tales have sort of been my jam this year, and along with The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, Pachinko did not disappoint. I also loved that this partially took place near where The Island of Sea Women took place, so I was a little familiar with the setting, which is always a nice surprise when reading about a country you're not super knowledgeable about.

The characters in this novel are incredible, and I felt like they always kept me engaged, and interested in their hopes, plights, successes, and grief. You really want Sunja, and later on, her family, to do well, and to be okay in as best a way they can given the extremely racially motivated hatred that the Japanese gave to Korean settlers.

The book is long, and it's a little slow to pick up, so I wouldn't recommend it if this isn't your cup of tea, but once the story starts to move, you're buckled in for a pretty wild ride- especially after arriving in Japan. I learned a lot from this novel, and I really can't wait to dive into some more books about Korea, and I'm glad to have been able to read it in time to watch the show on Apple+!

Recommendation:

Korean Historical Fiction:

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

Multigenerational Family Dramas:

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Booth by Karen Jow Fowler

"He was suffering, and in a way, he could manage that; but he had caused others to suffer, and he did not know why he had to live now and recall the series of terrible choices that had not looked so terrible at the time. Was that how it was for most people?"

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erica_palmisano's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

For a familial saga with war and other intense themes, this book was not as heavy and sad as I expected. There were undoubtedly elements of struggle, emotional trauma, and familial pain, but there were also fascinating moments of joy and delight and triumph, or at least reprieves regularly. The author did pacing quite well, and the narrator's style in the audiobook complemented the writing well. Listening really only got tricky when multiple characters were be conversing. Otherwise, it was a great listening experience and I'm glad I chose the format.

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