Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Pachinko

It’s heartbreaking yet rewarding getting to watch the characters persevere, adapt, and change over the span of decades. It didn’t feel tedious or slow at all. So glad I finally read this after having it on my tbr for years.

I do agree with some of the other reviews that there is a deeper connection to the characters in the first half of the book. However, I think Sunja’s story is meant to be more deeply explored, and that there is logic to the later generation being disconnected from the original pain of the novel’s first parts. The later generation of characters and their stories are affected by the past, but as Solomon realizes, not defined by it.

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jg93's review against another edition

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4.0

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tanahoff's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a thought-provoking story that follows the experiences of one Korean family throughout multiple generations in the 20th century. We start off with the life of Hoonie and his wife Yangjin, who live in a small fishing village in Korea with their daughter, Sunja. Following Hoonie's death, Sunja and her mother Yangjin take over the family business, working day and night to provide for themselves and keep their family business afloat. When Sunja becomes pregnant during her teenage years by a wealthy man, she must make a challenging decision. Sunja marries a Christian minister, Isak, and the two migrate to Japan. From here, we walk with Sunja and Isak, eventually following the lives of their children and grandchildren.

Pachinko gives readers much needed insight regarding the panorama of east Asia in the 1900s and the challenges that Koreans faced during that time. Through Pachinko, we learn about the displacement of Koreans and the challenges and xenophobia they faced in Japan. We see the impact of this displacement play out across marriages, careers, education, war, imprisonment, and more. Pachinko is an important story to educate readers about the Korean experience.

I picked up Pachinko after seeing it on the New York Time's Top 100 books of the 21st century, and after reading, I can say it's place on the list is well justified. Pachinko comes in at one of my only five-star reviews of the year.

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andrewlocetus's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful 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? Yes

5.0

you guys ever read a book so good that you forget one of the most important events of the 20th century happened because the plot was THAT engaging?

reading the author interview at the end was so interesting because she said she wanted to give everyone a well rounded perspective and by god did she do that. all of the characters were given space to be their own person and conflicting viewpoints were handled incredibly well, especially with the shift across generations. the transitions as time passed were handled seamlessly. i love the amount of care that went into this book. i cannot stress enough that it made me pace around my workplace because the plot was so so good. this instantly replaced my old favourite book it's that good.

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astrofeldy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-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

2.5

Pachinko follows an epic family saga across four generations, introducing the reader to an oft-forgotten side of Japanese racism against displaced and migrated Korean families (especially challenging in a modern day boom of Japanese pop culture among western readers), and grapples with what it truly means to answer “where are you from?”. While an impactful premise and arc, the story is unrelentingly grim, and builds up certain story lines to simply have them ripped away and never interrogated or looked at with nuance, thereafter. The author has an odd obsession with introducing characters via their breast and butt size that is representative of the shallow engagement with female characters (granted, possibly as a device to reflect how women were seen at the time), and this irked me throughout, too. Overall, I felt as though Pachinko was simply trying to do too much (and was ~1/3 too long, as others have noted), and in biting off such large themes and stories, doesn’t wholly chew any of them in a completely satisfying way. While I seem to be in a very clear minority of folks who didn’t enjoy this book, I simply didn’t find the strong start redeeming enough to carry me through.

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stephnew's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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? It's complicated

4.25

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sundayfever's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

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

3.0

Sad but informative, learned a lot about the history of Korea and Japan. The timeline skips forward a lot and I found the ending too abrupt. I liked the story and characters but the pacing was not my favorite.

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chriswoody94's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring reflective 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

4.5

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