Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Pachinko

if pachinko is something you’ve been wanting to read for a while, please bump it up your tbr list! or if you’ve heard the hype and are not sure whether to buy into it, take the plunge and give this a read. i highly doubt you’ll be disappointed. i was so unexpectedly impressed with pachinko, an ambitious story that tells the story of four generations of a korean family that emigrates to japan. this is undoubtedly one of my top books of 2024.

✧ full review on my tumblr ✧

Content Warnings

pipercurda's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.25

sweeping and urbane and devastating. upsettingly authentic and faithful to the time period and its culture. the story of a family throughout the generations, having no choice but to shoulder the burdens life thrust on them by way of war, sickness, nationalism, and love. not an easy read, but hard to put down.

Content Warnings

squintyfarmer's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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slow-paced

2.5

One part I can see the praise another part I can see the criticism (especially calling it trauma porn).
If you dont know about the Japanese occupation in various countries, this could be eye opening/informative while including characters that you either love or hate.
Personally as someone who has family affected by the Japanese occupation, I already knew a lot of the negatives of Japan during that time and thought some parts/descriptions were gratuitious.
There were also a lot of characters to keep track of and some parts of many of their stories felt too rushed because there were so many. I felt that we didn't get enough time with one tragedy before immediately moving on to another (which I understand that in life, especially during war and immediately after, tragedies can come right after another without giving the sufferers enough time to even process it but as a reader, it would've been nice to sit with certain things longer than a brief 2 sentences and a brief few sentences afterwards at the end. So I would've preferred cutting down on characters and expanding on certain tragedies and how the characters cope/lived with it).
Read content warnings because there is a lot.

Content Warnings