Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist) Free Audiobook Download by Min Jin Lee

The novel tells the story of the Korean-Japanese daughter of a Japanese Pachinko parlor owner who is adopted by an American family. She struggles with her identity and heritage, and later returns to Korea to find her birth mother.

Pachinko, written by award-winning author Min Jin Lee, is the riveting, unforgettable story of one family's determination to rebuild their lives during Japan's rapid modernization. As Korea's Japanese empire crumbles and a new Japanese Empire rises, the family is faced with the choices that define who they are: stay and become lost in the shuffle, or move forward - and away from everything they know.

Pachinko is a book that showcases the lives of Koreans and Japanese who live side by side in one neighborhood. It delves into racism, sexism, and America's involvement in WWII. The narrator does a phenomenal job at capturing emotion through both characters' voices.

The novel is a monumental work of historical fiction that asks the reader to look at the world through the perspective of generations of Korean immigrants in Japan. It's structured as an oral history, narrated by an extensive cast of characters--an old woman, a young boy, a former soldier, several relatives and friends--that give the book an unending flow. The richness of these voices is matched by the wealth of historical detail and cultural nuance that Min Jin Lee provides throughout her text.

One of the most important books I have read, Pachinko is an epic portrait of a thriving and enigmatic community. It is not just an account of the history and culture of Korea's urban underclass, but also a story of family and ambition set against the backdrop of Japan's post-war transformation into a hypercapitalist society.

"Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee is a historical fiction novel that grapples with race, immigration, and identity in contemporary Japan. In the Japanese-American immigrant's struggles to secure her place in society, we see glimpses of the lives of many others who are trying to make it in an ever-changing environment. It is a story told by three intergenerational women: a young mother and daughter, a grandmother who lost her husband during World War II, and a long-dead grandmother who migrated from Korea to Japan at the beginning of World War II. The narrator's voice changes narratively based on the time period that she's narrating.