Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan.

So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.

I really enjoyed this book! I never imagined being able to follow 4 generations of a family for so long (almost 500 pages!) when there is no suspense or thrilling...
But actually there is some thrilling! These caracteres are so relatable, are so real, that you immediately find yourself rooting for him or her, feeling proud of Noa in school as if he was your own, hating spoiled Akiko...
On the other hand, I also found myself understanding immigrants in Portugal, or Portuguese immigrants in other countries... come on, I am an immigrant myself!!!
The writing is clean, it means what it means and nothing else.
And, of course, there are the feminist details that made me sad, angry or heartbroken...
Highly recommended, but you need to be one of those brave readers that doesn’t feel intimidated by a 500 pages “project” :-)

This awesome book will start it´s journey : a BookRay!!

Here are the rules:
- if you´re not the last BCer on the BookRay list, try to keep the book for a max of 2 months and keep us updated!
- if you´re the last BCer on the BookRay list, congratulations! You can keep the book if you want, otherwise remember: this book is so good it deserves to travel all its life!

Here are the current participants of the BRay:
- Maria-Nunes
- Pequete
- Arvores
- conto
- ladylouve
- janeka

Segue para a Maria-Nunes!

It has just arrived here, in Lisboa!
Thank you for sharing it, Tuanita :-)

I really enjoyed this book very much! What an amazing reading!
I felt sorry when I reached the end, because I would like to keep on with the caracters :-)

It is now ready to move to Pequete's home.

Thank You so much for sharing it, Tuanita :-)

It's with me, thank you for sending, Maria-Nunes, and thank you for sharing, Tuanita. It might take me a bit to get to it, because I have recently started a 600+ pages one, but I will do my best not to delay the bookray too much...

An engrossing account of the lives of several generations of Koreans living between Korea, Japan and the USA between 1910 and 1989. The characters are easy to empathise with, especially the women, but I found the fate of Noa a bit hard to believe. The best thing about the book was no doubt all the things I learned about Korea and Japan and the hard time Koreans went through not just during the war, but also later on. The author makes an effort not to fall into the trap of making a simplistic portrait of the Japanese as the bad guys, but sometimes I had the feeling that she was trying too hard, and that showed in her writing, that here and therse seemed to lose some spontaneity. But on the whole, this was a very satisfying read.
It will now travel to the next one in line in the Bookray.

Vai a caminho da conto, porque o Árvores pediu para ser retirado do Bookray.

Just arrived.
I'll try not to take too long, but I've been a bit slow recently, when it comes to reading, so be patient with me, ok? :)
Thanks for sending it this way Pequete and thanks for braying it, Tuanita.

It arrived a couple of days ago, sorry for not being able to make the JE immediatly ;)

I will start reading this book (and I must confess I'm a bit afraid of what it will be, haha ;) ) as soon as I finish my current readings. I'll do my best not to take too long!

Thank you!

I'm so sorry. I put this book on its way to a new reader before duly journaling it. Here I am, then.
This was a great read for two long bus trips I had to make (and a few get-to-bed in between) and it kept me good company, quite entertained, while getting to know a lot about a pair of countries I discovered I didn't know much about, as well as about immigration in Japan (a lot like everywhere else in the world, unfortunately).
Besides that, I must say it felt a lot like a soap opera in writing. Easy to read but not all that interesting literarily speaking. Maybe reading it after one great book and starting another amazing one just after it, maybe that didn't help.
Anyway, thank you so much for the opportunity Tuanita.

Thank you for sharing this book! I read it during my short holidays. :)

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy it as much as I could, because some things about the narrative irritated me and bored me. I felt the religiousness of the characters out of place and very unlikely, as well as the whole power structure of this family.

I wrote a short review in portuguese, in case anyone would be interested: http://naomeapeteceestudar.blogspot.com/2018/08/pachinko.html

Now it's ready for its next reader!

Oops, this book already went to its new reader! Have a nice travel! =D

This book is now with me :)
Thank you for sharing, Tuanita!