Take a photo of a barcode or cover
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Pachinko made me starve for knowledge from its very first pages, and fed me every following spoonful knowing it would never fully sate me.
Although I knew about the atrocities committed by the Japanese against Koreans during the 1900s, it’s not a topic I had explored in such detail before - not on my own time, and definitely not during school history lessons. Something about this novel hooked me and didn’t let go until (nearly) the very end. That is without a doubt the result of such a vast, precise, sharp story, connecting human lives through their shared experiences and diverse existences.
Some characters I loved, some I hated, and some I still feel immensely torn about, but if one thing holds true for almost all of them, it’s how each had me nose-deep between the pages, eager to learn as much as I could, to get to know them as deeply as they would allow me. The women, especially, are memorable, their pain doubled, if not tripled, by their condition; vessels of life and suffering, generation after generation of the same free, unrecognized labor. Starting the novel, there was a moment when I feared a romanticization of abusive, violent relationships, but the author was precise in each of her depictions: victims do not acknowledge themselves as such, for they were led to believe the price of being born a woman is that of great, quiet suffering.
The book would have been perfect if not for the last part. The characters we followed throughout most of the novel almost disappear entirely in the final pages, replaced by characters with less nuance, whose stories seem far less connected to one another. Ending it earlier would have had greater impact on my experience, but I will remember the journey of this novel too vividly for the ending to ruin it.
Although I knew about the atrocities committed by the Japanese against Koreans during the 1900s, it’s not a topic I had explored in such detail before - not on my own time, and definitely not during school history lessons. Something about this novel hooked me and didn’t let go until (nearly) the very end. That is without a doubt the result of such a vast, precise, sharp story, connecting human lives through their shared experiences and diverse existences.
Some characters I loved, some I hated, and some I still feel immensely torn about, but if one thing holds true for almost all of them, it’s how each had me nose-deep between the pages, eager to learn as much as I could, to get to know them as deeply as they would allow me. The women, especially, are memorable, their pain doubled, if not tripled, by their condition; vessels of life and suffering, generation after generation of the same free, unrecognized labor. Starting the novel, there was a moment when I feared a romanticization of abusive, violent relationships, but the author was precise in each of her depictions: victims do not acknowledge themselves as such, for they were led to believe the price of being born a woman is that of great, quiet suffering.
The book would have been perfect if not for the last part. The characters we followed throughout most of the novel almost disappear entirely in the final pages, replaced by characters with less nuance, whose stories seem far less connected to one another. Ending it earlier would have had greater impact on my experience, but I will remember the journey of this novel too vividly for the ending to ruin it.