Campbell Andrews’s Reviews > Pachinko > Status Update

A character so vital to the narrative disappears for a hundred pages and then “finally dies”

This is not a good book anymore

Korean citizenship in Japan is unjust but it is less dramatized here than it needs to be

It’s too much. Too many turns and revelations. And too many times she’s employed the trick of plainly stating the worst development.

This is just spinning out with no thread to weave

Severe misstep. There is not enough intimated about Hansu to warrant such egregious violence.

The melodrama, it vexes me

There are frequent missteps, but also beautiful passages of kindness and truth

ew. I get why she’s describing the girl this way, but the tawdriness doesn’t stay confined to the page

Too much pairing off. If this is a focus of the novel it should be better supported thematically