Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

83 reviews

madi22w's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring 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? No

4.5

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a masterpiece of a book. Taking you through three generations of families, Lee ensured that you were close to individual members of the family as well as generations and cities as a whole. The main point of her book, being to demonstrate the divided between Koreans and Japanese in Japan, was communicated well, but it didn’t feel extremely obvious that this was the point of the book. The only reason why I dropped some points was because I thought that some of the plot points didn’t seem to make sense, but I think that this would have to be a much longer and more dense book for every characters actions to make sense to the reader. Overall, fantastic book—before I was even 1/5 of the way through it, I was sad for it eventually to be over.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide, Car accident, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Emotional abuse, Cultural appropriation, and Colonisation

lisamsalgado's review against another edition

emotional hopeful sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Violence, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Homophobia, and Sexual content

Minor: Ableism, Cancer, Torture, Abortion, and Colonisation

lillyrose97's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and War

Minor: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Emotional abuse

risemini's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Grief, Car accident, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Classism

lotstannard's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Trafficking, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

scifi_rat's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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? It's complicated

4.75

Plot: 4.5 ★
Prose: 4.5 ★
Pace: 4 ★
Concept/Execution: 4.5 ★/5 ★
Characters: 5 ★
Worldbuilding: 5 ★
Ending: 4 ★

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Death of parent, and Colonisation

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Alcohol, War, and Classism

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Murder, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

ok7a's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child death, Death, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Incest and Alcohol

Minor: Addiction, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Suicide, and Lesbophobia

kalmia31's review against another edition

emotional informative 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Colonisation, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, War, and Deportation

Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, Infertility, Infidelity, and Suicidal thoughts

abaighritz's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Colonisation

Moderate: Addiction

Minor: Suicide

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Xenophobia, and Classism

Moderate: Bullying, Confinement, Infertility, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Rape, Terminal illness, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Abortion, Murder, Alcohol, and Deportation