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4.21 AVERAGE
4.21 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
“The party started churning out more slogans, more propaganda. I couldn’t help but wonder where they even got all the paper for the posters—and whether I could eat it”.
...Holy shit
...Holy shit
You hear stories throughout your life on hardships different people face.
Losing a loved one - a parent, a child, a partner; losing your job; being homeless, almost starving, divorce, fire burning down your house.
But it hits you hard with a sense of dread and hopelessness in your inability to do anything when you read about all those things happening to one person, or his family, or his neighbours, or throughout his entire country.
This book details the life of a kid/man who was promised a wholesome, too-good-to-be-true life for him and his family if they moved to North Korea from Japan, and the hardships they all faced in a totalitarian regime. Trying to survive the horrors with everyone else for over 30 years while being treated as the lowest of lows because of their Japanese origins. You understand those things about the country, but reading about such accounts is still shocking.
The book might have a semi-happy ending, but the tale of what was lost along the way and what is yet to be achieved, doesn't make it seem to be so.
Losing a loved one - a parent, a child, a partner; losing your job; being homeless, almost starving, divorce, fire burning down your house.
But it hits you hard with a sense of dread and hopelessness in your inability to do anything when you read about all those things happening to one person, or his family, or his neighbours, or throughout his entire country.
This book details the life of a kid/man who was promised a wholesome, too-good-to-be-true life for him and his family if they moved to North Korea from Japan, and the hardships they all faced in a totalitarian regime. Trying to survive the horrors with everyone else for over 30 years while being treated as the lowest of lows because of their Japanese origins. You understand those things about the country, but reading about such accounts is still shocking.
The book might have a semi-happy ending, but the tale of what was lost along the way and what is yet to be achieved, doesn't make it seem to be so.
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Dang. This is brutal and doesn't let up, even at the end. But I am glad to have heard this man's story, and I'm thankful he was courageous enough to tell it.
Compelling read, but the author's way of storytelling made it a little bit less believable.