In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant—and that her lover is married—she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.

Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.

an easily digestible narrative about japanese occupation in korea. sunja's family goes through a lot, grappling with their mixed japanese/korean identity. at first, i thought noa overreacted when he found out hansu was his father, but as i continued reading, it started to make more and more sense. noa hid his korean identity to find work, but he also hated his part-japanese background because of how they treat koreans. i think that was eating at him to the point he couldn't take it anymore.

hana and solomon's hospital conversation was really gutwrenching. she definitely did not deserve to die like that, but it was the reality for a lot of girls at the time, especially with no other way to get employment.

while the writing style was easy to read, it definitely felt too blunt and matter-of-fact at time. the lack of emotion gave me whiplash, especially at major plot events. when noa shot himself, my jaw actually dropped because there was no allusion to that happening. i learned a lot more about korean/japanese history through this novel, and i think its a necessary read for anyone with close ties to east asia.