Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Pachinko

Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

116 reviews

miishmiish's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad 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? It's complicated

3.75

So difficult to rate. I think I agree with so many of the 3&2 star reviews— the narrative in the third section of the book is quite unfocused and threads that introduce characters are never tied up. Haruki's wife's vignette, for example, was interesting, but didn't add anything to the story, and she was never included after that chapter. I had to wonder what was the point of her story, if only to further a trope of overly sexualized Japanese girls?

Solomon's story was overshadowed a bit by the melodrama that was Hana's saga, and I found her character over the top.

I also didn't care much for the audiobook narrator, who couldn't pronounce Korean nor Japanese words correctly.

Why pick a narrator that cannot speak the two languages that are central to the story? It was hard to listen to at times.

That being said, this book is so illuminating in terms of showing how Koreans were (and still are in many ways) discriminated against in Japan, and the effects that Japanese imperialism and colonialism had on generations of Koreans. Despite knowing a good amount of Japanese history, I didn't know much about Japan's colonization of Korea and even less about the Zainichi (ethnic Koreans born in Japan) and their lineages. it's an incredibly important part of history and too often overlooked, like so many stories of colonialism and imperialism. For that reason alone, I think it's deserving of 5 stars - that Min Jin Lee was able to weave the tapestry of four generations of a fictional family in a very real history is extremely impressive.

I just had to knock a star off for the disconnected ending and loose threads.

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allyowly11's review against another edition

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challenging 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? No

4.5

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lgcpreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

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mikaylaslibrary's review against another edition

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3.25

Unfortunately, this just fell flat for me.

The writing style is gorgeous, and I loved the first part of the novel. It just went downhill from there.

I think that there were too many characters and not enough time to finish the novel. I loved Sunja, Yumi and Isak, but the rest of the characters all felt very similar.

The story is absorbing, and I did read it quite quickly, but I felt it should've been either longer, or two shorter books. The beginning and ending were very sweet, and tied the whole story together which I loved.

I think that this is a really interesting novel, and will definitely be someone's favourite. However, it just didn't work for me.

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san_dra's review against another edition

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emotional 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

4.5

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janicew9's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

The first 100 pages was difficult, the last 100 pages felt half lit, like the closing scene of a movie where sunlight filters through the curtains and the music swells over the voices of the characters. The middle was a fantastic novel. Was inspired to read this after listening to a Planet Money episode that featured an interview with the author.

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