Cannonball Read 11

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CBRBingo – Far and Away. An epic that is truly epic.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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I have been waiting a loooooong while for this book to get into my eager hands. A work friend extolled its virtues and it is the September book club pick for one of the clubs I’m in AND I figured it would be good for any number of bingo squares. I went with Far and Away because both the geographical and cultural differences from where I’m sitting in the American Midwest to rural Korea in the 1900s are expansive. While I was reading it, I was reminded of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude” because Lee, like Marquez, […]

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7/29/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:30 |

A Beautiful and Difficult Novel: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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Pachinko – Min Jin Lee Finished on April 23, took 17 days to read 5 stars on Goodreads Genre: Historical Fiction Rating 2/3 Historical Fiction Pachinko is a beautiful and heart-breaking book. The plot extends over multiple decades of one woman’s life: Sunja. Sunja was born in Japanese-occupied Korea, but eventually marries and moves to Japan prior to the outbreak of World War Two. We follow Sunja and her family (four generations) all the way through the 1980s and their lives in Japan. I was completely ignorant of how Koreans were treated in Japan, even after independence. This book was […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/29/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:17 |

When the Deck is Stacked Against You, Switch to Pachinko

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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I loved this book so much. I think it’s one of my favorites int he last couple years. It’s kind of a quiet story it’s about normal people living relatively normal lives, or at least normal for their situation, so it’s kind of a quite, slow meander of a book. There is no real climax or resolution to speak of, it’s a bit more circular in it’s plotting. This is the story of four generations in a Korean family that lived during the Japanese occupation of Korea through WWII and then after. Sunja was born in a village outside of […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/4/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:13 |

I don’t want to review this book

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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Pachinko, Min Jin Lee’s novel following multiple generations of a Korean family through most of the 20th Century, has received a lot of positive attention: finalist for the National Book Award, 10 best books of 2017 for the New York Times Book Review, Roxane Gay’s favorite book of the year (according to the Washington Post). And from what I’ve seen, the reviews here at CBR have been universally positive. So I’m at a bit of a loss, because I really didn’t enjoy it. At all. I was bored, and it took me forever to slog through it. Yet I also […]

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6/29/2018 's CBR10 Review No:34 |

Pure, undiluted story

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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The library makes so many books so very accessible for the low low cost of my tax dollars and I love it. Honestly, without it, I would probably stay safely in my niche, but because I have this access, I am exploring so many adventures and stories I would have only maybe heard of. Love your library, folks. Pachinko is a grand generational story, spanning decades and countries, following a single family from the once-united Korean peninsula to Japan. It took me into a history and a tension I understood existed but had never sought to learn more of. And […]

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3/29/2018 's CBR10 Review No:30 |

She was honest enough to admit that her privacy cloaked a fear: the fear of being found out as a hypocrite.

Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee

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So I read Pachinko last year, and pretty much think it was the best book to come out in 2017. It was incredibly strongly written, very compelling, and told a story that I wasn’t very familiar with or knowledgeable about. This novel does several of those things as well. It’s perfectly well-written and a compelling story. It’s a little well-worn territory, minus the fact that there are not remotely enough Korean-American voice working in contemporary fiction. This novel is primarily about Casey, a young Korean-American woman graduating from college and deciding between a guaranteed law school admission, entering into a back-door entry […]

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1/31/2018 's CBR10 Review No:24 |

A Non-Western Immigration Story

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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 Buzzfeed actually had a semi useful quiz a few weeks ago along the lines of, “answer these questions, and we’ll recommend a book.” My result was Pachinko so when I saw it prominently displayed at Barnes and Noble, I figured it meant I should go ahead and get it. Pachinko is one of those books that is always harder to review because while very well done, as a multi-generational family drama, there is a certain amount of familiarity to the general strokes of the story.  “Poor family, faces hardship and war, changing family fortunes, works hard, maybe eventually creates a better […]

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1/2/2018 's CBR10 Review No:1 |

Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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This is a book about luck and love and sex and  history and hate and imperialism, and, most of all, about playing the hand you’ve been dealt. Pachinko is a great big family saga. The main character, if there is one, is introduced fairly early on: Sunja, a teenager living with her mother who runs a boarding house in a fishing village in (what is now South) Korea, during Japanese occupation. A suave older man seduces her, one thing leads to the next, (this actually was my favorite part of the book, so I don’t want to spoil it!) and […]

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8/3/2017 's CBR9 Review No:7 |


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