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Pachinko

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Pachinko

By: Min Jin Lee
Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
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About this listen

Yeongdo, Korea - 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a 15-year-old girl. The couple have one child: their beloved daughter, Sunja.

When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then, Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends and no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja's salvation is just the beginning of her story.

©2017 Min Jin Lee (P)2017 Hachette Audio Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Voices Fiction Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Marriage
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This was a very long listen and covered SO so many characters. I think the book could have been halved as there were too many inconsequential characters. So much sadness and all for nothing. However I did complete the book just to see what would happen!

Started SO well!

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wonderful characters and a close up vote of a world we don't often hear about in the English language. I thoroughly enjoyed the depth of each character. No stereotypes. highly recommended

I loved this sweeping story

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One of the best books I have read in a long time. Such a beautiful family and what an interesting life they all lead. Great read.

I loved this.

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Warning: This book will rope you in and teach you valuable things about history and society, but it will also break your heart over and over and over and over again. Excellent book, better if you don't mind crying constantly.

Excellent yet heartbreaking

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Overall I enjoyed the book. It is lengthy however and after so long and so many details put into character building, the end seemed rushed and without purpose. I did enjoy the fusion of culture.

overall a good read but....

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I found this book enlightening on the Japanese and Korean history which ran in the background throughout the book. The lives of the characters are well written and thoughtfully intertwined. I enjoyed listening to the narrator.
There are unsavoury parts in there as well as swearing, which I personally, don’t care for, so I would not recommend this for mid teens.
I did however enjoy the majority of this well told story and would recommend it to adults.

An interesting generational story

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I was very captivated by the start of this novel. The first half was fantastic. The history of Koreans in Japan was very interesting and I learned something new. Unfortunately the rest of book kind of didn’t really go anywhere and lacked a solid story line being more a description of various events. The narrator gave a good performance and I enjoyed her style.

Strong start

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I loved this story, it was so wonderfully written that even though there were many parts of this whole, I never felt lost or confused and who was who and what was what. There is heartbreak, but I absolutely recommend this book.

Incredible

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Loved the fact you followed the main character through her entire life. So many interesting characters and side plots!

Loved it

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This is a beautiful story and superbly narrated. The characters were crafted skilfully. The hits just kept on coming.

Outstanding and lingers long

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