24.6k reviews for:

Pachinko

Min Jin Lee

4.36 AVERAGE

emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
challenging emotional 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
emotional informative sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I liked how this book covered so many generations of one family and somehow I still felt invested in every single generation and character. I think that's seriously impressive that the author was able to manage that.

I loved this book. If you like historical fiction I would recommend this book. You follow a family over 4 generations and I was so captivated through each one.
emotional informative reflective medium-paced
adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This was such a culturally and historically enlightening read! As a multi-generational novel, the book follows a wide cast of characters over the years, providing us with many different perspectives. Lee does her characters credit through strong characterization, exploring their drive and motivations, however simple or complex. This was true even for characters such as
SpoilerHana
, whom I strongly disliked.

As others have mentioned, we skip quite a few years at a time towards the end of the book. This, coupled with the fact that we initially only follow a very small, close-knit group of characters then branch out to follow many different ones, will undoubtedly make the latter half of the book feel rushed to some. However, I thought it fitting; during the war, the characters' lives slowed to a crawl as they struggled for food and money, but afterwards their lives expanded and life resumed its normal, frantic pace (this is the best I can do without spoiling anything).

I cannot recommend this enough for fans of historical fiction. Especially if, like me, you were not taught anything at all about the World Wars' impact on countries outside of Europe and the United States.

4.5