A review by funplings
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

5.0

A gripping, epic-yet-intimate family saga that chronicles the lives of several successive generations of a Korean family that immigrates to Japan in the early 20th century. It touches on a lot of big, weighty ideas about identity, discrimination, assimilation, culture, gender, etc., but it's always grounded by the small-scale everyday struggles of ordinary people, the people that history often forget. Some have complained about the book's revolving door of characters; the story frequently shifts its focus, and sometimes characters we've been following for many chapters are suddenly abandoned with little fanfare. But to me, it's a realistic touch that speaks to the book's interest in a People over any individual person, something supported by the book's holistic omniscient narrator, which takes the time to illustrate the perspective of almost everyone we meet, even if only for a paragraph or two. Stories can be powerful empathy machines, and this is a novel that generates profound empathy for everyone who conflicted and coexisted in this particular period of history, all of whom were just trying to survive and make a better life for themselves and for their families.