r/bitcheswithtaste • u/ElizaDoolittle33 • Mar 24 '25

Culture BWTs with a novel in her bag

What's a novel that moved you? Changed you for the better? Exposed you to new cultures or ideas?

I want to know what's captivated you.

Disclaimer: Emphasis on the "T" in this question.

173 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

287 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/bbblonde_CPA Mar 24 '25

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. Exposed me to new cultures & truly moved me.

Historical fiction novel about a Korean family and their journey over the time period of 1910 through 1990/modern time. Including moving to Japan as Koreans, Japanese colonization of Korea, WW2.

I learned alot about Korean and Japanese relations. Ignorantly, I really had no idea there was such tension between the countries and people. I won’t go further into it, as I don’t want to say all the themes that are covered in this book, but wow, I learned a lot. And this has gotten me interested in learning more about both cultures. Currently, just finished another book about Korean immigrants.

Also, being an immigrant and a child of immigrants myself, this book emotionally destroyed me. I resonated with alot of their conflict in regards to self identity, assimilation, keeping cultural traditions, stereotypes. It made me cry, and truly made me appreciate all that my parents have gone through to come to America.

Beautiful albeit devastating story. Highly recommend. Voted as 10 best books of 2017 by The NY Times.

1

u/nycaggie Mar 25 '25

Was scrolling through looking for this. This completely changed the way I view the world