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4.21 AVERAGE
4.21 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
This is my second time reading this book, and it still leaves me feeling haunted. This memoir details Masaji Ishikawa’s escape from North Korea and the entire narrative is a damning testament to the human rights abuses in North Korea. However, this book also warns readers about the dangers of a totalitarian regime, the false promises that the regime projects to control its citizens, and the consequences for a nation. Ishikawa describes in painfully vivid detail the constant fight for survival, the exhaustion of living under constant surveillance, and the bitterness he experiences because he and his family are classified as “hostile” in the North Korean caste system due to their ties to Japan. He also describes moments of hope and the desperation he feels to reunite with his family, even if the odds seem impossible.
If you are not familiar with the Japanese repatriation movement after World War II, I highly recommend this book. It pulls the curtain back not only on the conditions in North Korea before and during the catastrophic famine, which leads the author to make his eventual escape. Ishikawa’s narrative also shows the complicity of multiple nations and how colonialism has created longstanding effects in the global community. Ishikawa’s story is raw, deeply heartbreaking, and an essential read in these current times.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Racism, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Alcohol, Colonisation, Classism
This is a book that left me wanting to know more, and I haven't been able to find out much more. That's not surprising since the author escaped from North Korea and tells a very disturbing and tragic tale of his life. The shortcoming is this is tough to validate its accuracy. The author is not educated - beyond the equivalent of a basic education which occurred before his family (he was around 13 at the time) moved to North Korea. Even if this is not entirely accuracy, assuming most of it is accurate (and it may all be accurate), North Korea is, as the author describes it, hell on earth. Masaji's Korean father moved the family to North Korea on the Communist promise of North Korea but found instead even more oppression and poverty than anything experienced in Japan. A couple of points are very apparent from reading this book. 1) Anytime anyone in North Korea is successful (i.e. making real improvements in a very dysfunctional society), they are immediately ruined because no one can gain power and/or look better than the 'supreme leader.' 2) Age old knowledge (such as the planting distance between rice plants) is improved by the unproven party method causing crops to fail and people to starve. 3) North Korea leaders really hate America and use that as the great enemy. I don't think there will be any resolution with this country. Masaji has experienced a very tragic life. It's important to read. I rated this at 4 stars and not 5 stars simply because the accuracy cannot be validated.
Abrupt ending
The book was an excellent recant of this mans life in North Korea and his escape. I only wish the book wouldn’t have ended so abruptly.
The book was an excellent recant of this mans life in North Korea and his escape. I only wish the book wouldn’t have ended so abruptly.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I’ve lost count of the memoirs I’ve read by North Korean escapees. This one, however, is definitely one of the best yet - in that it rips out your heart with even more force than the others. If you’ve never read one, I would certainly recommend this one along with ‘’Nothing to Envy....” by Barbara Demick And “Dear Leader.....” by Jang Jin-Sung.
I read this just as Dolt 45 met for a photo-op with the third dear leader of DPRK, Kim Jung-Squarepants. Disgraceful. Shameful. Abhorrent. Dangerous.
Sigh.
I read this just as Dolt 45 met for a photo-op with the third dear leader of DPRK, Kim Jung-Squarepants. Disgraceful. Shameful. Abhorrent. Dangerous.
Sigh.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
sad
fast-paced
An utterly heart breaking tale. Promised a better life, a man moves his family to North Korea. This country is horrible, poor, inefficient, and uncaring. This one man risked his life to escape and though he succeeds, the ending is anything but happy
Absolutely heartbreaking. Fascinating, well told, but just.. the amount this guy has lived through is both incredibly sad and also a testament to himself and what humans can survive.