I DNF’d Pachinko

[u/cupidswing]

So when I purchased this, I had expected to read a book following a woman who is now thrown into the wolves and is forced to make hard choices in order to survive and while in a sense we do get that. It falls short for me in the lack of time we really spend with the characters.

The issue I’ve had is that the book essentially speed runs Sunja (the main character) life, that we don’t really get to know her as a person. The only thing we’re given is how Sunja put into terrible scenarios and how she handles it. But do we know if she’s funny? If she’s quick-tempered, I sure don’t know anything other than she’s resilient which is great but where’s the meat of her character. How does her relationships with the other characters develop? Just by time lapse?

We don’t even get to see how characters handle the aftermath of said scenarios, we’re just thrusted a year or two or maybe three later in the timeline, to deal with the next scenario. Then we’re mainly following other characters now and it’s like well damn, what happened to Sunja?

There was a moment where I teared up in the book and I do relate to some of the struggles that Sunja’s family goes through, so with anyone who’s an immigrant or is a first generation immigrant, you may like this. But for me, i wasn’t able to connect to the characters.

[u/Hrududu147]

That’s exactly how I felt. Every single big event that should have a big fallout was immediately followed by a time skip.

Strangely, I loved the Apple TV adaptation. Though that looks like it’s quietly not coming back.

[u/bobo1899 → u/Hrududu147]

How much of the book did it cover? I’ve been meaning to watch it, that’s a shame if they don’t finish the story in its entirety.

[u/Hrududu147 → u/bobo1899]

Maybe about 2/3. They padded out Solomon’s story to give it almost equal time to Sunjas story. But the last series ends with Noa finding out the big secret. I think one more season would have finished it out.