Reviews

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

hollybearhouck's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

mostlymady's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

barboyaoya's review against another edition

5.0

haven't read a masterpiece like this in a while. i can't stop crying

bea_123's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-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

5.0

ldwcameron's review against another edition

emotional 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? No

4.75

madmatilda's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

bellep4's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Beautiful and heart wrenching. Only reason it’s not 5 stars for me is because I think it could’ve been longer I. Some parts, specifically I would have liked to see a bit more on Sunja and Isak’s marriage and the last part felt rushed at some points. Maybe making it into two volumes would’ve been perfect. Other than that it’s a wonderful novel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Death and War

Minor: Suicide

marimarifer's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring sad tense slow-paced

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

3.75

rashmijha's review against another edition

4.0

I loved so much about this book, but some of the love faded as the book carried on.

I learned a lot about the history of Koreans in Japan and how Japan terrorized Korea and China. This was incredibly valuable and I’m grateful for it.

I felt that the female characters weren’t afforded as much complexity or personality as the male characters, with almost all of them being written as one end or the other of the Madonna-whore complex. I understand that the author did some of this intentionally for “historical accuracy” or to reflect the suffering, judgment, and sexualization these women had to endure. However, I think as a female author you have the ability (and I’d argue the responsibility?) to stop filtering history through the prototypical male voyeuristic lens and write women in a way that doesn’t center their physical appearance/sexuality/others’ judgements of their beauty as defining traits of them. There were a lot of scenes and mentions of breasts that would’ve warranted a major eye roll from me if this was written by a man, and I’m not sure the author being a woman frees her from this liability.

i_overthink_my_usernames's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0