From the Bookshelf of EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club…

Pachinko

Min Jin Lee

Start date: September 1, 2024

Finish date: September 30, 2024

Discussion: MODERN / POPULAR READS

Why we're reading this: September 2024 - Bookshelf Catch-Up
Group pick for the Modern Classic/Popular read - Nov. '18…more
[close] September 2024 - Bookshelf Catch-Up
Group pick for the Modern Classic/Popular read - Nov. '18

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MODERN / POPULAR READS

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What Members Thought

Jun 02, 2019 Keyona rated it really liked it

I love a good family saga and this didn't disappoint. This book spans 3 generations of a Korean family. It goes into how Koreans were oppressed in Japan and the resilience of the women in this family to survive. This book is quite long but it moved very quickly. We were mostly following Sunja who gets pregnant by a married man pretty early on in the book. Another man agrees to marry her help her raise her son and the story continues from there. The list of characters in this book are pretty fles ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Jul 04, 2020 Yasi rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 24, 2019 Travelcrazyone rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mindful-readers-bookclub-selection

Our Book club gave this a solid 4. A couple of our members loved it while the most of us used the word “like”.
The tapestry of multiple generations of Sunja and her family were intricately woven by the author , whose straight forward and almost simple prose , captivated us in this expansive read . There were many characters whose lives we followed & cried for but there was much more to this novel than the actual characters. The Korean culture from the perspective of those Koreans who actually ca ...more

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Sep 11, 2020 Ellen Librarian rated it it was amazing

This is an engrossing multi-generational historical novel about a Korean family in Korea and Japan. The characters are a little simplistic and the relationship that sets the story in motion and resonates throughout strained credulity for me but, at the same time, the author made it work.

The real power of the story for me was the author's depiction and dramatization of Koreans in Japan. It's a situation I knew nothing of and will probably never forget.

I picked up and put down this book several ye ...more

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Dec 31, 2019 Nicole rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5 stars

I feel mixed trying to write a review of this book. To sum up it feels so much and yet nothing happens in this story. It is a telling of four generations of a Korean family but it doesn’t feel like there is any arc to the novel but instead more of an objective series of observations.

That being said it is very well written and provides insights into the struggles of Korean people over the last 100 years both in Korea and in Japan. I just never really felt a strong connection with most ...more

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Jan 01, 2019 Lillian rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The two stars I'm giving this book: (1) anyone who had the patience of typing out a 500+ pages story deserves a star. (2) this is no doubt a very fascinating topic that has not been explored as such in the west. The Japanese have the reputation of not getting along with anyone in Asia (I'm Chinese and this is no news to me), but it's still really fascinating to read about the racial (or rather ethnical) dynamics within Japan.

In addition, I see this book as an Ode to the three strong women chara The two stars I'm giving this book: (1) anyone who had the patience of typing out a 500+ pages story deserves a star. (2) this is no doubt a very fascinating topic that has not been explored as such in the west. The Japanese have the reputation of not getting along with anyone in Asia (I'm Chinese and this is no news to me), but it's still really fascinating to read about the racial (or rather ethnical) dynamics within Japan.

In addition, I see this book as an Ode to the three strong women characters, Yangjin, Sunja, and Kyunghee, of their perseverance and their determination of surviving the family. For that kudos to the author for telling us the story of a strong people, for a people is nothing but the sum of its families.

However, instead of a multi-generational family saga that I was led to believe before reading it, the book feels more of a melodramatic episodic soap opera. In fact, half way in, after I finally gave up and resigned to treating it like a Korean soap that my mother and aunts and all the other women retirees back home (in China) tuning in day after day, the book interestingly became bearable.

By and large the writing feels like a good school girl's composition assignment: nicely laid out, painstakingly polished with not a single punctuation out of place. And with that it reads juvenilish with page after page of telling and bare-minimum of showing--if any at all.

The writing finally does pick up somewhat toward the last 50-or-so pages when we move to contemporary US and Japan, where the author apparently has more concrete experiences with. The conversations flow more freely and the characters start to emerge from the pages. Unfortunately it was too brief and too late.

I would think the author does have the potential to pull this off, if only she gave herself more time and some smaller tasks before tackling such a monumental subject. I could almost see the author, 20 years from now kicking herself for having written this so early in her writing career. ...more

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Jun 17, 2021 Red The Book Nerd rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this. Gaining insight into other cultures and their POVs is so important and is a lovely journey when you can't plan a vacation. Very sad stories within...I hope things are changing... And I'm very glad to be born in a time when women are considered more valuable than just a baby maker and maid. ...more

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