“Living makes you dirty.”

Pachinko follows a family dealing with their lot in life and persevering despite its difficulties, no matter how much is stacked against them both systemically and personally. Min Jin Lee’s writing is very well researched into the culture and hardships of Japanese-born Korean during the 19th century, and it makes it easy to dive in into the life of Sunja and her family. I found it pretty easy to follow even with a huge cast of characters and multiple perspectives, which would usually be too distracting for me.