Reviews

How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee

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tara_pikachu's review against another edition

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3.0

Loved her style of writing but the story is missing something that I can't put my finger on.

glrreid's review against another edition

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challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

cseibs's review against another edition

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2.0

I appreciated the book for the new perspective on North Korean refugees that it afforded me, but I was disappointed in the quality of the writing. The prose was stilted without any redeeming subtlety or refinement and the characters were erratic and two-dimensional. Danny especially was just a little too convenient to be plausible as a character - a Chinese-speaking survivalist Christian missionary of Korean dissent who just happens to want to live like a North Korean defector? He exists solely to make up for the weak plot.

sboedecker1024's review against another edition

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3.0

This was an interesting mix of characters and points of view, colliding and intersecting at various points throughout the novel. I was often distracted reading with a nearly two-year-old in the background so I sometimes lost track of the story and characters, BUT it was an excellent narrative of the refugee perspective, told through different viewpoints. Jangmi had the most impactful experience, reminiscent of multiple other Korean/North Korean-based novels I've read, and one that makes you angry as a reader. Really puts our lives of freedom into perspective.

longl's review against another edition

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4.0

The writing and structure of the narrative have a rhythmic quality that pushes the narrative forward. Almost like a chant or prayer. I'm always one for diaspora stories. It's not often that I come across ones that are not directly within the shadow of the US and the West. The contact zone, and borders, between North Korea and China (and Christianity) is a new space for me. While reading, it made me think of how similar it is to narratives we see in borderland (la fontera) stories.

gilmoreguide's review against another edition

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4.0

How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee is a lot like the Korean delicacy kimchi—a confounding blend of elements that, until it has fermented, can be confusing and difficult to appreciate. But, just like kimchi, by halfway through the novel the three disparate main characters have released their identities to make the story come together. Danny is a sixteen-year-old boy, living in America after his family emigrated when he was nine from an ethnically Korean area of China. Yong Ju is also sixteen, but he is the son of wealthy and important North Korean parents, living a life of luxury in Pyongyang. When his father angers the Dear Leader he and his mother and sister must escape the country to avoid being put in a labor camp or worse. Jangmi is a young North Korean woman who has been surviving as a smuggler, eking out a living selling black market goods from China until she becomes pregnant and enters a bride-for-purchase agreement with a Chinese man in order to escape the country.

The rest of this review is available at The Gilmore Guide to Books: http://wp.me/p2B7gG-1MW

danapr's review against another edition

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2.0

Danny, Yongju and Jangmi are three young people from very different backgrounds who find themselves homeless and on the run on the border of North Korea and China. The alternating story is told from each of their perspectives so we learn something about where they come from and their hopes for the future.
I found this book to be somewhat tedious and difficult to follow. The characters were not well developed and as a reader, I felt like I couldn’t know enough about them to like them. I know that it’s hard for a Westerner to fully grasp what it’s like in that part of the world but this book didn’t seem to make a dent in my understanding of the culture at all.