Book Review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Book: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Genre: historical fiction
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★


I chose this one for our latest kpop book club book because I wanted something historical and this one got rave reviews and was a finalist in the National Book Awards and etc. I wanted something a bit more farther back historically, but this one was interesting nonetheless.

It follows a Korean family from 1910 to 1989... starting with the Japanese occupation of Korea, through WWII and on to modern (ish) days. The main character is Sunja, who is born in Korea on an island just off the coast from Busan. Her dad dies when she is young and her and her mom run a quite successful boarding house. She ends up marrying one of the guys who boards there and they move to Japan to live with his brother and wife.

It was very hard to be a Korean living in Japan, which is the main theme of this book. It was hard then and it's hard now. And all of her family who was born there, her kids and their kids... are Korean ethnically, but basically Japanese, yet they truly have no country they can claim. It sounds like such craziness for them!

Anyway, we follow her story through all the the years. She had two boys and we see what happens to them. One of them ends up in the pachinko business (thus the name of the book) and I had to actually look it up on YouTube so I could visualize what a pachinko machine looks like. Vertical pinball basically. Loud and colorful. And you can win... a little with skill a little with chance. And then turn your prizes in for money... off site. I guess it's HUGE in Japan and makes a ton more money and rich people than everything going on Las Vegas.

So it's a great family sage, the type of which I love and haven't read for a long time. So I loved it. Became very attached to all the characters and either rejoiced or yelled at their choices. One of them I had to shut the book for  minute and go... ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? WHY WHY WHY???

It's about family (and found family), and relationships and identity, Korean culture and Japanese culture, and hard work and love and struggles and life and death. So yeah, it's good! I'm so glad to have sort of randomly added this to my books read this year!

Stay tuned to find out what's up next for the kpop book club!

Up Next for the Kpop Book Club: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

We've announced our next book for the Kpop Book Club! It's going to be Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a National Book Award finalist just last year I think. It sounds wonderful. I'm excited to jump into it!

Book Review: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Book: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Genre: Childrens classic
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

This was the other choice for our KPOP book club this time around. The Happy Prince (see review here) and this one, The Little Prince. Fun, eh? I'd read it already quite awhile back, but of course it's an easy read, so I read it again this past week.

It's a simple story of a guy who has a plane crash in the African desert, and while he's trying to fix his plane, a "little prince" shows up for a visit. And in their conversations, the guy learns that the prince has visited several other "planets" and learned things from all the people he sees. His last visit is on Earth, and he recalls the people and things he's come across there too. In the end, he has to return to his planet and it makes our airplane guy sad, but he feels like he is better and learned a lot from the little prince.

Last time I remember thinking.. wow. I'm sure something is trying to be said, I just don't know what! But this time, I tried a little harder to figure out what I thought was the lessons to be learned. Here's what I'm coming up with:

1. Take time to slow down in life and smell the roses and look at the the stars and enjoy sunsets.
2. Go out and appreciate the lives of others. Learn and explore.
3. Be loyal and dependable. Take care of things.
4. Open up yourself to be "tamed" or loved and vulnerable.
5. Grown ups are strange!

I don't know... what else do you think there is to be learned from this little tale? I looked it up to see what others thought. Some other ideas are:

1. Don't be too fond of numbers.
2. Don't judge others by what they say, but by what they do.
3. Relationships make life worth living.
4. The important things aren't seen with your eyes, but with your heart.
5. The time you give makes the thing precious.

The book is also full of TONS of quotes. Here's some favorites:

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”

“What a queer planet!" he thought. "It is altogether dry, and altogether pointed, and altogether harsh and forbidding. And the people have no imagination. They repeat whatever one says to them . . .

“That is the most difficult thing of all. It is far more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself correctly, then you are truly a man of wisdom.” 

“One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets oneself be tamed...” 

“If I try to describe him here, it is to make sure that I shall not forget him. To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but figures...”


Well, anyway. It was fun to revisit this one. We added it to the Kpop book club reads because so many of our reading kpop idols love this book. So many! And again I say, wouldn't it be fun to discuss with them what they love about it???

We'll be announcing our next book in a video on Saturday! Look for it! I'm very excited!

Book Review: Stories for Children by Oscar Wilde

Book: Stories for Children by Oscar Wilde, Illustrated by P.J. Lynch
Genre: children's illustrated short stories
Rating: ★ ★ ★


I picked up this one to read because we are doing The Happy Prince for the Kpop bookclub this time around and I found it in this compilation and decided to just read all the stories here, because it will also fulfill another category on the book challenge I'm doing!

This particular edition included six stories. Here's a summary of each:

The Selfish Giant: A giant gets bugged when he discovers children playing in his garden, so he bans them from coming. But then his garden is cursed with winter until he realizes why and has the kids come back. One particular kid catches his eye...

The Nightingale and the Rose: A young boy wants to give something to a girl to make her fall in love with him. The nightingale learns of this plight and sacrifices himself to create the perfect rose, but the boy takes no heed and all is in vain.

The Devoted Friend: A miller has a very warped definition of friendship and works his "friend" to literal death.

The Happy Prince: A statue of a the prince notices the suffering people in his kingdom and he gives everything he has, with the help of his sparrow friend, to ease their suffering.

The Remarkable Rocket: A firework, intended for the celebration of the marriage of the prince and princess, decides to start bragging about how wonderful he is and ends up exploding in a very unremarkable way.

The Young King: A pauper turned king has three dreams on the eve of his coronation which makes him decide he does not want to be a pompous king and he refuses to wear the riches prepared for his coronation.


Basically, every single story is extremely depressing! Except maybe the Selfish Giant which still ends in death. Yeah. Every story is also quite sarcastic and expresses the author's feelings (I'm assuming they are his feelings) in quite an unsubtle way. Of course, most of this would go over a kids head, so I was baffled they are considered "for children." They are pretty morbid for children too! More like parables for adults here! They did feel like twisted Bible stories in a way.

Anyway, still I learned lessons. Things like: be a true friend, don't be selfish, don't be a braggart, help the poor people, don't be prideful, give of yourself, know the true meaning of love. Etc. :) Also, I know I was supposed to pay attention to the illustrations, and they were okay, but they didn't really stand out to me.

I.M aka Im Changkyun of Monsta X

We read this one because recently I.M (aka. Im Changkyun)  from Monsta X read The Happy Prince for an audiobook production. I found it on Youtube and thoroughly enjoyed listening to him read it to me! He knows English well, but has some interesting pronunciations for some words which made me smile and was so very cute.  Here it is if you are interested. I know he did a Korean version too, which I would love to listen to. But I haven't found it yet.




We are also reading The Little Prince for this bookclub this time around, so look for that to come later!

Book Review: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Book: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Genre: Magic Realism
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

This is the second book we chose as part of our endeavor to have a kpop book club! Yes! A book club in which we read books that the kpop idols have loved and recommended... or books about Korea... or books that are like a kdrama, etc. We have quite the list to choose from.














This particular book (and it's author specifically) is listed on several favorite lists from the idols. For instance:

RM from BTS













JB from Got7

Jonghyun from SHINee

As I said when I announced this book, how fun would it be to discuss this book with these guys and see what it is about it that speaks (spoke...sob) to them. Gah. If only we could have a book club where they are included. Unless they are Goodreads members and have already found us using an alias or something. I mean, it's possible....

I was scared of this book and this author. I've heard lots of praise for him, but have always assumed it would be "too hard" to read. I am happy to report that was not the case. In fact this book was very very easy reading, except for a few scenes that had subject matters that were hard. But the readability and the engagement and the page turning was great! So now that encourages me to even perhaps try another of his books one of these days!

Anyway, this story is basically about a 15 year old kid who runs away from home and heads out on a bus to a new city and has no idea what he plans to do. He ends up hanging out a cool and tiny little library where he makes friends with the guy manning the front desk. On alternate chapters, we are following a 60 year old mentally disabled guy who had a trauma happen to him when he was a kid that caused his disability. He is minding his own business, living his simple life when suddenly he feels compelled to go on a sort of quest... he has stuff to do but he doesn't know what it is, but he will know when it happens.

The stories and back stories of these two and also the librarian who we meet eventually, all sort of tie together, and it's quite fascinating. But also, very confusing and bottom line, while I enjoyed the journey, in the end... I didn't get it! I don't understand the point! WHAT WAS THAT ALL FOR????

But I think it's one of those books where it's just... figure it out and whatever you come up with... that works!

I read that some  people figure everything is a sort of a dream state, and all the crazy and weird things that happen could happen in our dreams, and it's bordering on conscious and unconsciousness. Or, it's that the characters are coming and going in and out their bodies, and inhabiting each others' bodies. Yeah?

I don't know. But it's crazy some of the stuff that happens. But I enjoyed it, despite a few scenes that were a bit graphic for my taste.

There is a big emphasis on books, music and art. I loved that. There was also many profound things that were said where I was like... yeah man. I googled the quotes.. here are a few:

So anyway, in the end, I would say I enjoyed reading this one, but I truly have no idea what it's trying to say! If you've read it and have a theory, do share! Enlighten my small brain! And if you've read others by this author and enjoyed them, let me know which one should be next on my list!

Emily has announced our next read! Click below!!

And if you want to see me SAY all the above things I just WROTE, but with lost more stuttering (no, hopefully those are edited out) then you can:

Book Review: Please Look After Mom by Kyung Sook Shin

Book: Please Look After Mom by Kyung Sook Shin (translated by Chi Young Kim)

Genre: contemporary literary fiction
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★


This is our first book in our new kpop book club! I'm thinking I might be the only one reading along! LOL! (Maybe Emily will still? )

Anyway, fabulous book, this one is. It's about a Korean family and one day when the older parents (I think they are in their 70's maybe) come to Seoul to visit, the mom gets separated from the dad at the train station. He gets on and she does not. (This has actually happened to us in Rome only we all got off and my husband couldn't get past the crowd to get out and the train left with him still on it!)

And now they can't find her. So they begin to search everywhere, with no luck.

As they search, we learn all about this family. The first part is from the POV of the daughter (using second person which was strange at first, but then you get the hang of it) We learn this daughter has grown up to be a famous author (making me wonder if much of this story is based on the author's real life family) and she and her mom have not really got a long much of late, but she had noticed a few times when she visited that her mom wasn't doing too well, but hadn't said anything. We learn lots of other things too.

The second part is from the oldest son's POV, this time in third person. And we learn many other things about their mom. How she was so hard working, and did so much for her family. And how everyone pretty much just took her for granted. The story flips between past and present a lot... between these kids growing up and the current day as they try to find her.

The third part is from the husband's POV, back to second person. And he is feeling bad about all the crap he gave his wife, like leaving her for another woman. But then coming back as if nothing had happened. We learn about their first meeting and their backgrounds. We also learn some interesting things about the mom that no one knew. She had her secrets.

The fourth part is now from the mom's POV, which is told in first person. And it's a bit stream of conscious and a bit hard to follow as she bounces from place to place and person to person. Is she a ghost now? It seems something like that, but it is never really explained. But we get her thoughts about all the people in her family, especially the ones we've just met. Also, more secrets!

Finally, we are back with the daughter who ends the story with an epilogue that ties it all together.

And so we are left with this overwhelming powerful feeling to love those that are with us WHILE they are with us. And to have no regrets about your relationships. To not leave things unsaid. And most especially, to not take your mom for granted! And to realize that she is a person just like you are with her desires and dreams. That she wasn't BORN a mom, but is a normal person like we all are.

All of this while also learning about the Korean culture... both now and in the recent past. Kimchi and rice. Ancestral rites. Holidays. Buying your family underwear with your first paycheck! (I get a kick out of that one!) And so many more. It was all fun and fascinating. I do wish they would have left in a few Korean words. They said Mom so many times, I think if they would have left that one iin we would have caught on, you know? And it would have given it a little more Korean flavor I think. But just a thought in passing here...

I really enjoyed it and think this was a great book for our first kpop book club pick! What's next????

Announcing: THE KPOP BOOK CLUB!

So this is an idea I've had for quite a long time, and it's all coming together finally since we met a new friend and BookTuber, Emily Boone. (Check out her channel here.)

So over on YouTube we've been participating in a fun Friday meme where we have to come up with five songs every week based on a theme. And I'm having fun thinking up kpop songs that fit each weeks theme. (This week is a Halloween theme and AH! So good!)  Well, Emily participates in this meme too and in the process of going around watching everyone's Friday Five videos, she liked our songs and.... bam... e have "konvertered" her to kpop! Most awesome thing ever.

Here's her video talking about that:



And then we thought we should do something together.. collab as they say. And so we've decided to start a KPOP BOOK CLUB! Here's Emily announcing THAT on her channel:



We plan to read books that our favorite kpop stars love and recommend (it's a long enormous list) and books they have written or compiled (if we can at all find them) and books about Korea or set in Korea... and books that might be based off or on a kdrama... or books that are like a kdrama. Oh, and there are fun books about falling in love with kpop stars too. Yep.. there's TONS!

We've started a Goodreads group for this, so if it sounds at all interesting to you, find us over there: Kpop Book Club Goodreads Group.

Our first discussion will be on Emily's channel at some point down the road (we'll give it a month or two at least) and then we'll chose the next book and discuss on our channel... and go back and forth like that.

Our first book is Please Look After Mom by Kyung Sook Shin, and I'm hearing some pretty great things about it. If you start reading and want to discuss, find us on Twitter using the #kpopbookclub hashtag too! I can't wait to get started!!!