Reviews tagging 'Death'

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

256 reviews

madeline_schmidt20's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense 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: Xenophobia, Terminal illness, War, Sexism, Suicide, and Death

Moderate: Trafficking and Torture

Minor: Sexual content

jkull_10's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Xenophobia, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Colonisation, Violence, Stalking, Alcoholism, Grief, Classism, War, Medical content, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Misogyny, Hate crime, and Death

readingsponsoredbybts's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Hate crime, Adult/minor relationship, War, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Violence, Classism, Alcohol, and Colonisation

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Terminal illness, Medical content, Deportation, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Police brutality, and Rape

Minor: Drug use, Cancer, and Homophobia

madzie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.75

Lee hits the ground running in this family saga; unfortunately, her pace peters out. The beginning of this book has it all. The characters are well-developed and interesting as they struggle with colonization, war, and relationships. Lee quickly and wonderfully establishes themes and creates excellent ideas to begin moving her plot along.  She has a wonderful writing style throughout, which feels classic and epic. Her use of omniscient narration works very well for her story and characters. Every moment and insight into the characters feels like a very natural and intimate dialogue the reader is privy to.

Unfortunately, about two-thirds through the book, the characters, plot, and themes fall apart. Lee moves too fast through time, not allowing time to develop the later generation of her characters or the themes she has set up. Instead of exploring the point she is trying to make about life and the world, Lee falls into the trap of focusing on spurts of drama that make the reader feel empty due to lack of time for character building. She relies on tropes that occasionally go directly against her themes and certainly never adds anything to them. 

Lee writes about a very intriguing and important part of history that is rarely told and starts off wonderfully with vivid characters and ideas. However, the novel's structure could have benefited more by building more on her later characters to round out her themes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Sexism, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Pedophilia, Racism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Car accident, Sexual content, Suicide, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War

Minor: Infertility, Drug use, Fatphobia, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Abortion, Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Addiction

ackee's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

For other Asian diaspora like me, I hope you find this book. It was wonderfully enchanting and a deep tribute to the quiet women that held communities together in Asia in the 1990s, against so many outside unknown forces. It was so humanizing, and by bringing us along to see intense private emotional conflicts it sheds light on a marginalized and mistreated group of people in a beautiful way. I personally feel so much gratitude for the success I’ve had, and MJL shows that such success rests on the shoulders of shoulders that have worked tirelessly for generations. Luck exists, but in unfortunate times, it is rare. I had difficulty finishing this book and had to set it down many times—it’s very emotionally hard hitting. It’s worth teaching the conclusion, but I would encourage a sensitive reader to take their time. Reading is supposed to be enjoyable, not painful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Violence, War, Pregnancy, Death, Bullying, Colonisation, and Misogyny

navyredrose's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad 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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Racism, Suicide, Xenophobia, and Death

Minor: Abortion and Terminal illness

_danana's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Mental illness, Miscarriage, Grief, Emotional abuse, Death, War, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Racial slurs, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Cultural appropriation, Pregnancy, and Racism

georgialee01's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Colonisation, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, War, Pregnancy, Death, Sexual content, and Racism

Minor: Terminal illness

sakisreads's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I wanted to LOVE this book so so much, but unfortunately it didn’t quite hit the mark for me 🥲

Although the trauma for Koreans living in Japan is evident, and what many of the characters went through was undeniably terrible, there were a lot of words for not much being said. I felt like I would be getting excited about one character’s journey then we’d go back to the same old pattern their parent felt about something going on in their life (e.g. I got more intrigued when Mozasu’s character was being shown to us, but we’d often go back to Sunja’s feelings towards Hansu time and time again). I felt myself having to put the book down quite often because I felt a bit bored 🙈

I’ll include the content warnings below because there are quite a few needed.

All in all I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars. I thought some of the imagery and the love portrayed between Sunja and Isak, or even Sunja and Kyunghee, were stunning 🥰 But I felt that the storylines dragged on for so long and it could get tricky to keep up.
Thank you ✨

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Abandonment, Chronic illness, Sexual harassment, Violence, War, Racism, Racial slurs, Alcoholism, Classism, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Colonisation, Death, Misogyny, and Suicide

mal_reads_books's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

4.5

I enjoyed the range of characters and the drama between them. I felt invested in most of them, especially Sunja. When it started focusing on the newer generations (the 1970s-80s chapters toward the end), I did find myself flipping through more quickly because I wasn’t really interested in them.

(Side note: It took me a while to figure out Mozasu was named after

Moses

and I feel kind of dumb for it 😅)

Overall, great story that demonstrates the discrimination and other hardships that Koreans experienced in 20th century Imperial Japan. I already had a surface level understanding of how the Japanese treated Koreans back then (“comfort women”, for example), and this book gave me an in-depth look of what the Koreans went through. I felt immersed in the story, settling, and culture. Would love to read more books like this. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Torture, Suicide, Colonisation, Death, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Adult/minor relationship, Racism, and Death of parent

Minor: Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Abortion, and Infidelity

Christian themes are prevalent, especially toward the beginning. Several characters have biblical names, such as Sunja’s pastor husband (Isak), brother-in-law (Yoseb), and children (Noa and Mozasu).

Isak and several members of his church are imprisoned because one member was caught saying The Lord’s Prayer instead of worshipping the Emperor. He is released shortly before he dies and his injuries show that he was tortured in prison. Seeing him die, and how unrecognizable he looked, especially when his family hasn’t seen him in years, was upsetting.

Other things worth knowing: teenager is groomed and gets pregnant by man twice her age; also a group of boys attempts to sexually assault her, but she is saved by this man. Resilience against racism and misogyny are major themes of the book, so anti-Korean and misogynist comments are frequently seen in dialogue.