I read this book over a year ago and still think about it. It's an amazing story, very well-written and the story sticks with you. I would recommend this to anyone looking to read a well-rounded, generally overall "good" story. I just put another book by the same author on hold, because I was wishing I could reread Pachinko again with fresh eyes and experience that same immense enjoyment that I felt the first time reading it.

I didn't realize how Koreans were discriminated against in Japan. Very good read.

As the description states, Pachinko a multi-generational saga following a family (and various side characters) through their lives as Korean immigrants to Japan, beginning in the early parts of the 20th century. For such a lengthy book, I was always driven to find out what would happen next and felt truly invested in the daily tragedies and joys of the family. As compelling as it was, it was also educational. The author clearly did her research on this particular period in history and the experience of Korean people living in Japan. I finished the book feeling that I'd learned a great deal on topics I'd hardly heard of before. While I think it was worth the read, I did feel that the third act fell short of the first two and there were times when the writing seemed rushed. Others disagree, so it may depend on which characters you feel most attached to.

This book was enjoyable and very interesting but often as soon as I became invested in a character they died or the story moved on to something else. Also it seemed more like a story of a lot of people but the plot of the story didn't seem as satisfying as I had hoped. More like a documentary than a story that takes you for a ride.

The inside jacket gives an accurate description of what the book is about so I won’t rehash it. When I put this book down for the day I can’t say that I couldn’t wait to pick it up again. Slow moving, way too long and drawn out. Good historical insight however into what life was like for ordinary Koreans under Imperial Japanese colonial control. Interesting perspective of Korean’s view of Americans during our (sadly) forgotten war on a peninsula that is still a danger to the region’s stability to this day.

This is one of the finest novels I have read in ages. Part family saga, part historical fiction, and certainly part magic, writer Min Jin Lee worked with the text for 30 years, and has crafted it finely. The tale itself begins in 1900, with Sunja, a young woman & fisherman's daughter, as she falls in love at the Korean seaside. It sweeps through 4 generations of Koreans living in Japan, taking the reader from the bustling street markets, all the way to the glistening new towers of Osaka and Tokyo.
The story is compelling - one of those books that has you making excuses so you could go back to reading it.

Read up to end of chap. 6. Completed.

The author writes in an amalgam of styles, flitting from the lyrical to banal to prosaic and then to the humdrum of daily life - - with some occasional profound passages. An interesting fact as fiction portrayal of generations of one Korean-Japanese family, with tangential interludes of intervening lives.
Knockout of an ending!

If Min Jin Lee made a statement in her debut novel "free food for millionaires," she shows in "Pachinko" that she is here to stay. In this book she shows the angst of Korean immigrants in Japan - immigrants after being there for four generations and being born there. The characters are sketched well and I felt for them.

The book is sweeping and overwhelmed me in the best way. I felt such affinity with the characters' internalization of shame based on the legal and social discrimination of the time and legacies of both. The book is more that that. It is broad and by the end of it you'll be wanting to more fully understand your grandmothers and their un-named sacrifices and hopes for themselves.