Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Pachinko

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

205 reviews

dee_dreams's review against another edition

informative reflective sad slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Pachinko started out with an interesting premise. I felt invested in this family drama. But about halfway in, I felt like I was tricked into reading a cheap, emotionally-manipulative soap opera.

Instead of whining about what I disliked, which is a lot, I wanted to be constructive and offer some lessons I took away instead.

When characters die or disappear, it should matter. The characters who knew the dead person should care on some level (even if it's shallow or self-serving.)

The more characters you kill off, the less empathy the reader will feel for random new characters that are introduced.

Misery is not the same as depth. Trauma is not the end of the story. Focus on the characters' humanity rather than their victimization.

Use writing for good. We already know that evils like misogyny, racism, ableism, and grooming exist. Don't simply portray them for trauma porn. Use your writing to challenge them and provide a different perspective. Nudge the reader towards empathy and a belief that change is possible. Nobody needs more despair.

Stop introducing random, dehumanized sex workers and then portraying graphic violence against them. It's been done to death.

If you've already described a character as "plain, unattractive, never lovely," you don't have to do it three more times. You especially don't have to make the sexist, male-gazey descriptions more disparaging as she ages.

Don't try to take on a huge amount of unrelated themes. Or, do - just decide to make it a collection of short stories, rather than a novel. And follow up on those themes.

Last but not least, think about whether or not a "family saga" spanning 4 generations really needs a chapter about a minor character, unrelated to any members of said family, discovering pansexual orgies in the forest during the Summer of Love. And if you decide, yes, it does, make it hot. Please.

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readingsponsoredbybts's review against another edition

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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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madzie's review against another edition

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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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