Pachinko by Min Jin Lee ~ Book Review

Grand Central Publishing
Historical Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

I’m not a big historical fiction reader, so I don’t know if this is uncommon for this kind of book, but I was blown away by the sheer breadth that Pachinko covered. It starts with young Sunja follows her and her family for generations. It did a fantastic job of showing how her choices and the choices of those around her informed the generations that came after her.

This story focuses heavily on tensions between Korea and Japan and how Sunja’s Korean family is treated in Japan. There is an incredible amount of history and historical commentary, but it is woven seamlessly into the characters’ lives.

This is a long sprawling book, and I do feel that I got to know the characters in the beginning much better than those later on. The ending felt a bit rushed in comparison, and I wished these had been a bit more balanced. I got a little confused about who was who toward the end.

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