Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Pachinko

Too many characters to keep track of, I liked the biblical references throughout the story but constant references to sex began to read like an erotica I got tired of skipping audio

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raila_h's review against another edition

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emotional informative reflective 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

4.75

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hankhank's review

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emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

I really enjoyed this book. The vividness of the story's world was built up from the tiniest personal details, into a whole society. The main cast of characters felt like real people to me, and I'll miss their company. It was especially impressive how the author moved through time so seamlessly, and how characters we met first as children aged so realistically. There are lots of terrible things that happened in the story, and many sad moments, but also many sweet, funny, beautiful things, too. I would recommend this to anyone who like stories about people.

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brinxleyx's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective 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? No

5.0

This is a new book in my favorites list. Pachinko addresses every issue under the sun within the cultural context it was written in. I have never been so affected by a character, and this story provides many many different stories throughout the four generations of the family it focuses on. This book was both beautiful and culturally informative. There was so much I learned, and I definitely cried.

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lilyeligator's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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kyrajade's review against another edition

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informative sad 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? No

3.25

I think this is an important story to tell, but I think that it wasn't written very well. The first 250 pages I was wedded to the original cast of characters, but then for the sake of making the narrative multi-generational, the author began introducing characters very shallowly who you were for some reason supposed to care about, and then the stories of these characters and the widening time skips between chapters meant that characters from the first half who you liked and felt an attachment too were picked off in the background. The author made horrible and traumatic things happen in this book and yet you didn't get to experience any of the grief of the characters because she skimmed over it with a time skip. The whole thing felt very emotionally unsastisfying, but the actual context and history of the story is an interesting read. For a character driven story, the characters introduced in the second half are flat and semi-transparent. I really enjoy multi-generational stories (100 Years of Solitude or Do Not Say We Have Nothing) and one thing the authors in both books do is carefully manage the number of characters in the book to give the reader the experience of spending time on the page with each one. This book just became too ambitious and lost so much in the process.

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thenoboshow's review against another edition

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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? Yes

4.5

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