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4.21 AVERAGE
4.21 AVERAGE
This is good. Read this if you’re interested in North Korea. There isn’t a ton of detail put into how things work in the country, but I think that’s probably fine for people who don’t know much either. The angle of the author being born in Japan is different than any other defector work I’ve read.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
An incredibly harrowing story of one man's life. The blurb is correct in saying A River in Darkness shows indomitable human spirit since so much of the book is beyond my imagination that I dreaded to think how I could survive similar circumstances. The events, how Masaji gets to North Korea, the evil system in the country itself, is so frustrating, harrowing and sad, but also so powerful a story that needed to be told. You can feel the emotions of the author throughout.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Violence, Suicide attempt
Minor: Child death
A really sad story. Masaji Ishikawa had a very tough life. The last few pages, where he talks about both his parents passing away and wasting away, followed by seeing his family meet the same fate as the country reaches a stage of apathy after the death of Kim Jong-il is very tough to read.
Equally as tough is the part where he lives in Japan while hearing of his family's continued tragedies in North Korea.
Will recommend, but only if you can take it.
Equally as tough is the part where he lives in Japan while hearing of his family's continued tragedies in North Korea.
Will recommend, but only if you can take it.
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
dark
informative
sad
I thought this book would be mostly about his escape, but instead, most of it is a horrifying look into life in North Korea.
Tragic, hopeless, godless, merciless life. The UN? - Human rights? - a joke with zero credibility
This is an incredibly tragic memoir. Obviously, given the subject matter, it was bound to be, but JESUS. It was very eye-opening, as you hear about how terrible North Koreans have it, but to see it in these (sometimes graphic) words is something else.
The book was mostly a linear timeline, but it jumped forward quite a lot, and there were times when 10 years had gone by without really being described, so it was sometimes hard to keep up with about what year it was. I also noticed some translation/editing mistakes, such as his wife's name being Kim Te-sul and most of the time, he refers to her as Te-sul, but one time referred to her as Kim, which didn't make sense. Also, in the epilogue, something got messed up because it says "The last letter I received from Myong-hwa came in the autumn of 2005," he responded, then later he "received a letter from Ho-son" in response to that letter. The next sentence says "I last heard from Ho-son in 1998." There were a few other parts of the translation that threw me off, but those two were the only ones that really changed the meaning of what was being portrayed.
Overall, this was a very insightful book and I think is a really important story, because for all the talk about how horrible living in North Korea is, this really paints a very clear picture of it.
The book was mostly a linear timeline, but it jumped forward quite a lot, and there were times when 10 years had gone by without really being described, so it was sometimes hard to keep up with about what year it was. I also noticed some translation/editing mistakes, such as his wife's name being Kim Te-sul and most of the time, he refers to her as Te-sul, but one time referred to her as Kim, which didn't make sense. Also, in the epilogue, something got messed up because it says "The last letter I received from Myong-hwa came in the autumn of 2005," he responded, then later he "received a letter from Ho-son" in response to that letter. The next sentence says "I last heard from Ho-son in 1998." There were a few other parts of the translation that threw me off, but those two were the only ones that really changed the meaning of what was being portrayed.
Overall, this was a very insightful book and I think is a really important story, because for all the talk about how horrible living in North Korea is, this really paints a very clear picture of it.
emotional
sad
fast-paced