Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Girl with Seven Names

“My curiosity had always been greater than my fear - not a good trait to have in North Korea, where fear keeps your senses sharp and helps you stay alive.”

What an incredible, eye-opening telling of the atrocities that happened and continue to happen in North Korea to this day. Hyeonseo Lee is just one brave person who, quite literally, risked it all as she defected from North Korea in search of a new life.

Yet her story is not the norm — her family held a high status, known as songbun, and lived a relatively comfortable life. It was curiosity and rebellion that first sent her across the river to China and only the realization that she had been fed lies about North Korea being the best country in the world that kept her there.

Hyeonseo does not shy away from how neighboring countries and the world view North Korea, North Korean defectors, and the challenges they face if and when they reach freedom. She was a young woman who fought for her freedom, her family’s freedom, and lived to tell the world their story.

The Girl With Seven Names is a must read.

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rainbowwitch's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring tense fast-paced

5.0

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mondovertigo's review

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adventurous emotional informative tense fast-paced

5.0

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josefinceh's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring fast-paced

3.5

Read the Swedish translation.
The girl with seven names is about the authors life in North korea, how she escaped and, how she came back to get her mother and brother out as well.
The story gets you hooked quickly as Lee describes her childhood in North Korea. She goes into great detail both about the happy times as well as the fear and paranoia that is so deeply ingrained in their culture. Throughout the book she gives you just enough of a hint for you to see where things might be going but still keeps you at the edge of your seat to see what will happen.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Although I did find the writing to be a little bit stocky (possibly due to the translation).

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brynn_books's review against another edition

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4.0

This is not a book that I would have picked up on my own free will. I probably would have glanced over it because I don’t really read a lot of memoirs. But I had to read this book for school and while I don’t typically enjoy having to do work over a book which often makes me like a book less, I really enjoyed this one.

This book is all about a young girl who escapes from North Korea and how she becomes free. It is also about how a single action from one person can change a person life. Because the authors life was change in this book because a stranger showed kindness to her and was able to help her during a very difficult time in her life.

I enjoyed reading this book and getting to compare the differences between North Korea and America because they are very different and it was really interesting seeing how these North Koreans talk about the Americans. It was like seeing America through a different lense.

Sometimes this books did drag a bit and I was bored but the story quickly picked back up and I became obsessed like I hate to know how the story was going to end and whether her mother and brother would ever get free from North Korea.

This book is sort of persuading me to want to read more memoirs because I enjoyed this one so much but we’ll see. We’ll see...

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