A review by jcaceres88
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad fast-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

3.5

I really enjoyed this read, there were just a few things that kept me from LOVING it. One of which is that it's really hard to connect with some of these characters with how quickly we hop around sometimes. The author also had a habit of dropping some momentous devastating developments and then abruptly moving on. I wish we had spent some more time in the direct aftermath of these developments to learn more about how the family dealt with it. But otherwise I enjoyed learning so much about the Korean and Japanese communities during these time periods. There was so much I didn't know about that history and learning it through the lens of multiple generations of this family was a unique experience that I actually very much enjoyed.