Review by memeraryfiction - Pachinko

memeraryfiction 's review for:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

3.75

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Pachinko is a good read. It paints a clear, highly empathetic, and (according to the acknowledgments) research-informed portrait of a Korean family in Japan throughout the 20th century. The Baek family's story is tragic but manages to never turn fully bleak. The characters are well realized, and most are fully developed. (There are some side characters about whom I would have liked to hear more, but it's a large cast, and even at 500 pages the book can't do everything.)

I did find the pacing a bit frustrating - there are frequent jumps of 4-5 years between chapters. I don't think it was necessarily an incorrect decision, and I do think the pacing on a whole-book level is pretty well managed; but it did prevent me from getting to know the characters as well as I would have liked, and parts felt rushed.

I personally preferred Lee's earlier novel, Free Food for Millionaires. Despite coming in at about 100 pages longer, Free Food has a narrower scope with regard to characters and covers a much shorter timeframe. This allowed for greater and richer character development, which I personally found more engaging. With that said, though, Panchinko is well worth a read as well.

Content Warnings