---
product_id: 51327563
title: "Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)"
price: "899492₫"
currency: VND
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.vn/products/51327563-pachinko-national-book-award-finalist
store_origin: VN
region: Vietnam
---

# Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)

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## Description

desertcart.com: Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist): 9781455563920: Lee, Min Jin: Books

Review: An excellent page-turner - This book was hard to put down. One more reason to quit my day job! There are a lot of interesting multi-generational family sagas out there. However, Pachinko is at the top of the pile due to excellent writing and a unique story line. Pachinko spans the time period from 1910-1989 and follows a Korean family as they move from Korea to Japan. The story begins with Hoonie, a man born with physical deformities who is loved and nurtured by his parents. The family owns a boardinghouse. Japan has annexed Korea and times are tough. Because of difficult financial times, Hoonie is able to find a bride. Yangjin and Hoonie have a happy but hard life and are blessed with a daughter named Sunja. As a young girl, Sunja meets Koh Hansu. He is wealthy and handsome, but he is also not as he seems. They have an affair and she becomes pregnant. She makes the difficult choice to leave Korea for Japan, as the wife of one of her mother's boarders, Isak. He is a minister from Osaka who has been ill all of his life with tuberculosis. Isak and Sunja go to Japan and he raises her son, Noa, as his own. They later have a son together named Mozasu. In Japan they live with Isak's older brother and his wife. The brothers are very different. Noa is intellectual while Mozasu struggles in school. The family scrimps and saves to make sure that Noa can attend school. Mozasu is clever and ends up working in a pachinko parlor. Throughout Sunja's life, Koh Hansu is never far away and gives unwelcome interference in an effort to give his son a good life. Noa eventually discovers the truth of his birth with devastating results. Mozasu prospers, as does his family. Much much more happens in the book, but I do not want to ruin the twists and turns. Pachinko is set against the backdrop of WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. Koreans were treated as second class citizens in Japan. They had to change their names. Some Koreans were able to pass as Japanese. Those that could got better jobs and better treatment, so they guarded that secret from bosses, friends, and even spouses. After the wars, going back to Korea was often not an option. Pachinko parlors also play a major role in the book. A parlor may be shady and mob connected. Pachinko is a type of gambling game, like vertical pinball. Parlors still exist today. I Googled it! In addition to highlighting Korean history (about which I knew next to nothing), the story is very compelling. I cared about the characters, even the unlikeable ones. The book is full of tragedy, loyalty and betrayal, suffering, and triumph. But this is no fluffy beach read. The writing is lovely without being too flowery. I am still thinking about this book, though I finished it two weeks ago. I highly recommend this book and I plan to read Ms. Lee's other book, Free Food for Millionaires.
Review: but the readers on Litsy were so unanimous in their love for this book - I'm not a huge fan of the family novel, but the readers on Litsy were so unanimous in their love for this book, and because I had wanted to expand my reading this year, and mainly because I got it for $1.99 during one of those one-day sales on desertcart, I took the chance. I'm so happy I did. The game of Pachinko is used as a metaphor for how we live our lives, taking gambles which sometimes pay off, and sometimes don't. It can be colorful and exciting, and it's certainly something about which many of us obsess. In this story, people gamble all the time, some are fortunate, like Sunja, who is rescued from infamy by a young man whose life she helped save. And in fact, as hard as Sunja's life has been, there have always been people there for her, there have always been opportunities, often unlooked for, like the random bounce of a Pachinko ball as it spins through its maze of pins. Sunja and her family are Koreans living in Japan before, during, and after WWII. They are perennial outsiders in what is a highly insulated society, yet manage to make their way through hard work and determination. Some of her family slip away, some cling to life and make it work for them, and its not always who we might expect in either case. Some make their mark, looking past their social position to the status that success can bring. Pachinko is very much about the expectations people have of themselves and of each other, and yes, it's very much about family. But for once I wasn't put off by the formulaic treatment inherent in a family story. Even the family members I didn't like I liked, if that makes any sense. And in the end, the story was satisfying which is all I really ask of a novel.

## Images

![Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/814EvRgiKpL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An excellent page-turner
*by S***S on July 17, 2017*

This book was hard to put down. One more reason to quit my day job! There are a lot of interesting multi-generational family sagas out there. However, Pachinko is at the top of the pile due to excellent writing and a unique story line. Pachinko spans the time period from 1910-1989 and follows a Korean family as they move from Korea to Japan. The story begins with Hoonie, a man born with physical deformities who is loved and nurtured by his parents. The family owns a boardinghouse. Japan has annexed Korea and times are tough. Because of difficult financial times, Hoonie is able to find a bride. Yangjin and Hoonie have a happy but hard life and are blessed with a daughter named Sunja. As a young girl, Sunja meets Koh Hansu. He is wealthy and handsome, but he is also not as he seems. They have an affair and she becomes pregnant. She makes the difficult choice to leave Korea for Japan, as the wife of one of her mother's boarders, Isak. He is a minister from Osaka who has been ill all of his life with tuberculosis. Isak and Sunja go to Japan and he raises her son, Noa, as his own. They later have a son together named Mozasu. In Japan they live with Isak's older brother and his wife. The brothers are very different. Noa is intellectual while Mozasu struggles in school. The family scrimps and saves to make sure that Noa can attend school. Mozasu is clever and ends up working in a pachinko parlor. Throughout Sunja's life, Koh Hansu is never far away and gives unwelcome interference in an effort to give his son a good life. Noa eventually discovers the truth of his birth with devastating results. Mozasu prospers, as does his family. Much much more happens in the book, but I do not want to ruin the twists and turns. Pachinko is set against the backdrop of WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. Koreans were treated as second class citizens in Japan. They had to change their names. Some Koreans were able to pass as Japanese. Those that could got better jobs and better treatment, so they guarded that secret from bosses, friends, and even spouses. After the wars, going back to Korea was often not an option. Pachinko parlors also play a major role in the book. A parlor may be shady and mob connected. Pachinko is a type of gambling game, like vertical pinball. Parlors still exist today. I Googled it! In addition to highlighting Korean history (about which I knew next to nothing), the story is very compelling. I cared about the characters, even the unlikeable ones. The book is full of tragedy, loyalty and betrayal, suffering, and triumph. But this is no fluffy beach read. The writing is lovely without being too flowery. I am still thinking about this book, though I finished it two weeks ago. I highly recommend this book and I plan to read Ms. Lee's other book, Free Food for Millionaires.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ but the readers on Litsy were so unanimous in their love for this book
*by M***S on June 23, 2017*

I'm not a huge fan of the family novel, but the readers on Litsy were so unanimous in their love for this book, and because I had wanted to expand my reading this year, and mainly because I got it for $1.99 during one of those one-day sales on Amazon, I took the chance. I'm so happy I did. The game of Pachinko is used as a metaphor for how we live our lives, taking gambles which sometimes pay off, and sometimes don't. It can be colorful and exciting, and it's certainly something about which many of us obsess. In this story, people gamble all the time, some are fortunate, like Sunja, who is rescued from infamy by a young man whose life she helped save. And in fact, as hard as Sunja's life has been, there have always been people there for her, there have always been opportunities, often unlooked for, like the random bounce of a Pachinko ball as it spins through its maze of pins. Sunja and her family are Koreans living in Japan before, during, and after WWII. They are perennial outsiders in what is a highly insulated society, yet manage to make their way through hard work and determination. Some of her family slip away, some cling to life and make it work for them, and its not always who we might expect in either case. Some make their mark, looking past their social position to the status that success can bring. Pachinko is very much about the expectations people have of themselves and of each other, and yes, it's very much about family. But for once I wasn't put off by the formulaic treatment inherent in a family story. Even the family members I didn't like I liked, if that makes any sense. And in the end, the story was satisfying which is all I really ask of a novel.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Absolutely fantastic
*by B***N on January 20, 2018*

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a family saga about a four generations of a Korean family that is set in Korea and Japan. It’s a National Book Award finalist, and, in what may be an even greater honor than that, it made my Favorite Books list. I have found that it is easier to explain why I don’t like a particular book or to point out a book’s flaws than it is to explain why I absolutely loved one. It’s like explaining why a rainbow is beautiful. I can talk about how the colors are pretty or how it made me feel, but there is something about rainbows, sunsets, and the best works of art that transcends easy explanation. You just have to experience them. Read Pachinko. The format of the book is straightforward. It proceeds chronologically from about 1900-ish to 1989 and follows various characters that belong to one family. It never sprawls out of control – there aren’t 37 second-cousins that you will have to keep track of – and there aren’t flash-backs and flash-forwards that could potentially cause confusion. There are occasional Japanese or Korean words sprinkled around, but their meaning is apparent from the context. I don’t speak a lick of those languages, and I followed everything without ever having to consult a dictionary. The prose is simple and straightforward, generally consisting of short, direct sentences. There’s not a lot of fluff. Therefore, the book reads quickly, despite being an almost 500 page family saga about sexism, fate, hard work, destiny, chance, war, poverty, racism, familial obligations, identity, immigration, citizenship, language, education, opportunity, community, and faith. The main characters are diverse, interesting, flawed, and generally fundamentally good people. The characters are not very Dynamic (at least in an obvious way), but they weren’t really intended to be. This isn’t a story populated with characters that have grand, clear character arcs. This made them feel more realistic to me. How many people do you know that are on a Hero’s Journey? Most people I know just try to keep their heads down, work to put food on the table, and hope for good opportunities for their children. I’ve said before that I am a fan of history, and I was generally ignorant of Korean culture in Japan. Pachinko is not some dry history lesson, though. It’s as entertaining as a soap opera. You should read it.

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*Last updated: 2026-02-13*