Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Pachinko

Pachinko is a gripping family epic that deals with so much so delicately, yet without hesitating to display the cruelty of war and the historic injustices Japan has dealt Korea. This book snuck up on me, carefully guiding my investment in the story and the characters so that I didn't fully realise it until it was too late and something horrible had happened - and yes, I cried. I only wish that the book would have had a stronger ending, but I suppose it does maintain the same quiet and unassuming tone, which is also a strong choice by the author considering the topics that are brought up towards the end of the book. Regardless, Pachinko is definitely a must-read for everyone, in my opinion.

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peachani's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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tenten's review against another edition

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sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A

3.75

A woman's lot is to suffer."

this book might've been ... too much for me. and i have read some really sad books (see: Brother, I'm Dying.) but something about Sunja's life just felt like ... throughout the book i kept being like, "damn can she catch a break!?" not just her but her family. it was like her line was cursed or something! i'd say out of all of them, Mozasu's life was the least traumatic but even then,

his first love got hit by a car a couple of years into their marriage

.

the thing i appreciated most about this book is how much i learned about Japanese colonialism and their treatment of Koreans. i knew Japan did bad things to Koreans, and other nations they colonized during WWII, but i had no idea that they had colonized Korea long before that. as someone raised in the US, i mostly hear about Japan as a victim of the US's brutal bombings, and indeed they were victims, but i feel like a lot of non-Asian americans do not know about the atrocities that Japan committed. it was wild to me that as late as 1989, a Korean who was born and raised in Japan couldn't even rent property in Japan without a guarantor like what the hell!!

i've seen people complain about how detached and straightforward the writing was, almost clinical, but ... i didn't hate it. i think it worked for the narrative, and even though it wasn't particularly emotional, i did cry when That happened to Isak.

all in all, i enjoyed the book. i didn't think it was boring at all and some of the actions that characters made frustrated me, even though i guess i understood them. i may be simple but for me, a judge of a good book is how much it made me feel different things, and i felt a lot with this one. a fine book!

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mckenziecampbell's review against another edition

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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

5.0

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marie's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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

4.0

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hayleyvem's review against another edition

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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

4.0

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nothingforpomegranted's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This sprawling family saga follows a Korean family from 1910 through four generations across Korea and Japan, exploring themes of devotion, discrimination, class, poverty, and family.

Hoonie is born with a limp and a cleft lip in a small town in rural northern Korea in 1883, causing tremendous distress for his family who feared he would be unable to work or to marry; Hoonie manages to do both. He and his wife Yangjin run a boardinghouse and adore their daughter Sunja, whose life takes us into the rest of the novel.

After her father's death, Sunja works with her mother to serve their guests and provide a positive experience that they can all be proud of. When she meets and becomes pregnant by a middle-aged man who turns out to have a wife and children back in Japan, Sunja is saved by a sickly pastor who offers to marry her and bring her with him to his brother's home in Japan. Isak, Sunja, Yosef, and Kyunghee live a stoic, quiet, humble life, working desperately to provide for themselves, Isak's new church and the coming children. Noa is born, then Mozasu, and the family grows tighter and more reliant on each other, taking over the kitchen to make kimchi and candy to sell. As the boys mature, their lives in school and at work begin to diverge, and the introduction of the fourth generation takes the story in a tragic direction.

Min Jin Lee's writing is spare, using short sentences and very little imagery, and I found it difficult to be immersed in the story because the choppy language just didn't pull me in. Though I was intrigued by the characters, their range of personalities and their relationships with each other, I expect more texture from a family saga, and I didn't get that from Pachinko. I learned a lot about Japanese and Korean culture, and I appreciated the deft way Lee explored history--including the bombing of Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War--through the eyes of her characters, not making a big deal of big events, but addressing them as her contemporaneous characters would understand them. Indeed, there was plenty that I was prompted to research after reading (though Lee might have taken it a bit too far in that direction, because sometimes I wasn't even sure what to look up).

For those who are curious about the history of this region during this extended time period but do not usually read literary family sagas, I think this is an accessible one to pick up. Given the many other reviews I've read, it seems that my lukewarm attitude is an unpopular opinion, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Content Warnings

marrowe's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

4.0

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