Sadly DNF’d at 44%. Couldn’t get into it. Might have to try again at a later date or possibly try reading instead of listening. Summary and reviews alSadly DNF’d at 44%. Couldn’t get into it. Might have to try again at a later date or possibly try reading instead of listening. Summary and reviews all SOUNDED good but 44% in and still waiting to get sucked into story and characters so giving it up for now ...more
enjoyed this book but it did take me the whole 3 weeks i checked it out for to read it. sadly i didn't write review right after i read it which now i enjoyed this book but it did take me the whole 3 weeks i checked it out for to read it. sadly i didn't write review right after i read it which now i realize i HAVE to do, otherwise it's not fresh enough in my head to write a knowledgeable review. now i only remember samuel andresen anderson is a college professor. his mom leaves him and his dad when he's super young which is baffling to me as a mother. she ends up in the news and needs samuels help to be a character witness for her which of course is ridiculous since he doesn't even know her since she left him when he was a child. the love interest, bethany, is his childhood best friend's twin sister. can't remember the best friend's name now....more
**spoiler alert** this book was pretty good. at one point in the beginning of the book i was LISTENING (high) and i almost dnf'd it because i thought **spoiler alert** this book was pretty good. at one point in the beginning of the book i was LISTENING (high) and i almost dnf'd it because i thought it sounded super corny. but i decided to try READING it the next day and ended up liking it better. i felt fairly drawn to the book after that and would read it whenever i could find little spaces in my time to read. although i kept waiting for the story to start getting to whatever the moral of the story was gonna end up being and tbh i don't really know if it ever ended up getting there. the book just ended and i don't feel like there was a point to telling us this story.
casey was slightly annoying and i feel like a good chunk of the story follows her life. there wasn't a lot of backstory to explain why casey's parents were tough on her or if there was, i must have skimmed over that part quickly. there were also a lot of characters that took me awhile to keep track of and some i didn't feel needed to be part of the story. like joseph the bookstore owner that ended up giving casey all of his deceased wife's hats. Not really sure what purpose that little storyline served although i did like joseph. there were also things that were left unresolved and some stuff too swept under the rug (like what happened to leah with the professor, forgot his name)
ultimately, i LIKED reading it while i was reading it, but i didn't like it enough to consider recommending it anyone ...more
loved it! i think it's an amazing and important book. in awe of chanel miller for overcoming this traumatic event and being able to write about it so loved it! i think it's an amazing and important book. in awe of chanel miller for overcoming this traumatic event and being able to write about it so eloquently and with such a forgiving and positive outlook on life when she could have allowed it to darken her days and blanket her life with fear and doubt. what happened to her is horrible and sad but she prevailed and is a better and hopefully joyful person that is able to conquer the typical feelings and emotions that could have emotionally paralyzed her. it's a horrible story because of what brock did to her, and sadly it happened to her but also we're almost lucky it happened to HER and not someone else who would not have been able to get over the trauma and write such an amazing and wonderful book about what victims go through already just living through their traumatic event, but letting others know how everything that happens to them afterwards is just as traumatic and difficult....more
i flew this book pretty quickly. i loved it. i knew close to nothing about the korean japanese conflict and what that looked like in wartime era. i JUi flew this book pretty quickly. i loved it. i knew close to nothing about the korean japanese conflict and what that looked like in wartime era. i JUST happened to have recently read another book during this time period called "IN ORDER TO LIVE" which is a biography about a korean woman who escaped the north to the south, then china and japan. so reading pachinko right after reading that one ended up working out perfectly as the historical timelines and theme and struggles endured matched up. these are challenging existences that people had to live through so we (future generations) can live better lives. reading stories of these struggles are a stark reminder of how grateful we should be to our ancestors for the sacrifices and challenges they had to overcome to provide a better life for us.
"Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage"
This story starts with Hoonie who seemed like a sweetheart. Hoonie is arranged to marry Yangjin. They have Sunja, who we watch fall for an older man who takes her innocence. older man of course is married and sunja refuses to be a mistress so she wont have anything to do with hansu but they have a son, noa. so isak, a kind,sickly minister who sunja and her mother take care of as a lodger decides to marry sunja to give her and her baby a name and moves her to japan where no one knows her and her situation. isak loves noa as if he is his own, noa and no one else knows otherwise. sunja and isak have another child, mozasu who then has soloman. isak and sunja move in with isak's brother yoseb and sister in law kyunghee take them in and they all live together almost for the rest of the book. ...more
**spoiler alert** i keep telling myself i should always write something about a book immediately after i read the book because my memory doesn't serve**spoiler alert** i keep telling myself i should always write something about a book immediately after i read the book because my memory doesn't serve me as well as it used to plus it's already difficult for me to put my thoughts and feelings about something on paper so i think writing about a book right after reading it would be the best way for me to have better recall of the characters and story.
i just read a couple reviews on this book and agree with a few of the outliers that didn't LOVE this book as much as so many others have. i got through reading it quick enough so the story kept me captivated enough to want to keep reading to get through it pretty quickly. but based on the summary of the book i was waiting for a bigger reveal on the darkness of william's past coming to light that was gonna cause the big bang that would tear the sisters apart, but there was no big bang and william's family's past history was not indulged much in the beginning of the story so it didn't seem like his parent's lack of showing love for him was traumatic enough to lead to such drastic measures, so it is a good reminder that no matter what we know or think of how others are doing, we can never know to what extent these feelings can affect someones thoughts, actions and will to live. i've also said a million times in the past that its insanely crazy to me that sisters could ever be attracted to, and then ultimately love the same man, especially if in doing so, it would sever the relationship between the sisters. i'm assuming it's been so easy for me to think and say that because i only have 1 sister and her and i have absolutely different tastes in all the men we've had ever been romantically involved with. but i also have a grandfather who loved and fathered children with 2 sisters so that's always been a CRAZY thing to me! i've always assumed the sister (not the sister the husband was with first) must have been a bitch to sleep with her sister's husband, but reading about the padavano sisters and getting through their story gets me back to my strong belief of never saying never haha.
reading how sylvie and william's love story plays out wasn't such a cut and dry case of sylvie being a bitch and not giving a shit about her sister. it was more a cut and dry case of sometimes not being able to control how you feel about a person and the chemistry/attraction between 2 people is sometimes meant to be.
i didn't read dear edward prior to reading this book so i did not have expectations from the author to be anything other than what i saw here on goodreads about the book and of course the idea that the book must be good because all of the different accolades it has received. i did enjoy the book enough to get through it quickly so i'll keep my rating at 4 stars, or maybe drop it down to 3. i didn't LOVE any of the characters all that much so i agreed with one review i read that said she never felt invested enough in the story to stay engaged, but that wasn't exactly accurate because i was engaged enough to get back to it when i could. William and his friend kent and their friendship was cool. The girls' love for charlie, their dad, was of course endearing. rose and her strict, rigid values was not cool and her disowning one of her daughters after her mom had done the same to her wasn't cool as you would think that she would have aspired to not inflict the same pain and bitterness towards her own daughter.
the twins strong bond seemed typical story fodder for twins so that wasn't anything extraordinary. williams parents not acknowledging his existence was unimaginable (as a parent) so i wasn't a fan of that storyline. julia was a selfish person that didn't give me any big reasons to be sympathetic in any way towards her character. and the 2 people that would have been interesting to delve into -the young cousins who were raised apart and then not aware of each other until sylvie's illness/death, were mostly glossed over in the story, but i would have liked to hear how izzy caught alice up on everything she didn't know about. by this time in the story, maybe the book was too long already so not enough time and space to spend on detailing what transpired between the girls after not seeing each other since they were babies.
so i just changed my rating to 3 stars because after writing this review so i can try and ensure that i remember it in the future, it's making me realize i didn't crazy love the story but it was captivating enough to get me through it quickly.
Flew through this book. Loved it. Wasn’t expecting to love it as the first few reviews for it here were not good at all. Thankfully there’s a few fiveFlew through this book. Loved it. Wasn’t expecting to love it as the first few reviews for it here were not good at all. Thankfully there’s a few five star reviews to help boost the rating which I think should be a little higher especially after finishing the women by kh that has crazy high ratings but was soooo hard to even finish reading cuz it was so bad! Based on my previous thinking on what I would rate a 5 star read, I should prob only give this one 4 stars but since I don’t agree with a less than 4.x rating, I’m going with 5 stars to help negate some of the other negative reviews. Haha, product of a generation who believes every vote counts
I wasn’t CRAZY IN LOVE with Sally, the main character but I also didn’t dislike her. I thought Noah was sweet and could easily see how and why Sally would feel all the feels she felt. I loved the behind the scenes look at TNO (a fictional SNL) which is ONE of the shows I have always and still enjoy watching even with the way too many choices of things that we can now stream/watch.
I didn’t love that the chapters were sooooo long as I like to switch back and forth between reading and listening so it was hard to set good stopping points to get to easily on a different device or medium but that wasn’t a deal breaker. Lots of ppl mentioned the book being political which I think is crazy. It’s got the SLIGHTEST little injections of politics or politicians. I think some ppl might just be Uber sensitive to anything that casts a negative light on their beloved ex-pres who provided MUCH fodder for comedians to latch onto and make skits out of so hard to fault the author on just what was happening irl.
Will possibly write more later so I can post this before gr crashes and I lose it all...more
sounded fine but wasn't telling me anything i felt like i needed to know or that was blowing me away for now knowingsounded fine but wasn't telling me anything i felt like i needed to know or that was blowing me away for now knowing...more
WOW! Just wow! BEAUTIFUL! Enlightening. Inspiring. Thought provoking. I was gonna say I have no words but then those ones came to mind. Incredible, amWOW! Just wow! BEAUTIFUL! Enlightening. Inspiring. Thought provoking. I was gonna say I have no words but then those ones came to mind. Incredible, amazing origin story, life story. ...more
enjoyed the book, but wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to my friends/fam. i would recommend it to a voracious reader as i did get through theenjoyed the book, but wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to my friends/fam. i would recommend it to a voracious reader as i did get through the book fairly quick so i feel the story was entertaining enough to get me through it fast.
BUT, wasn't in love with the mom (anya/vera) being such a bitch to her daughters (meredith and nina) even after finding out or hearing her tragic story and what she went through, endured and lost in leningrad; didn't really excuse her behavior towards her girls. so then it didn't make sense to me that the dad would be so in love with the mom cuz she just seemed like a quiet old bitchy lady. the whole fairy tale telling thing was also way too hallmark movie setting. the lesson didn't apply for me either although in theory reading about it in the summary, i was looking forward to a big revelation of that happening but i didn't really get how learning their mom's story led to them knowing themselves any better.
i did like and did cry a little at the big reveal (stacy) in the end, but even that, i feel was pretty underwhelming. i also think i would have enjoyed a little more time or insight into/with jeff. he was a large part of meredith's story and seemed like a cool guy, but we didn't get much into him as a character and i would have liked to know him a bit better
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