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4.47 AVERAGE
4.47 AVERAGE
A really good insight about life in North Korea.
What an incredible book.
Such straightforward stories, with such gut-wrenching detail.
Anyone interested in what North Korea has been like over the last 40 years should read this - and I'd love to see an update from Barbara Demick to let us know whats happened to the truly interesting people she interviewed for this book.
Such straightforward stories, with such gut-wrenching detail.
Anyone interested in what North Korea has been like over the last 40 years should read this - and I'd love to see an update from Barbara Demick to let us know whats happened to the truly interesting people she interviewed for this book.
dark
informative
sad
fast-paced
dark
informative
sad
fast-paced
dark
hopeful
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
informative
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
Highly informative while also telling the stories of real people in an engaging way that will appeal to readers who usually struggle with nonfiction. Though the book was published in the 2000s and focuses on the 1990s and early 2000s, there is an afterword that gives a bit of insight into North Korea up until 2020. Other than certain scenes, usually about the famine, that were too dark and haunting for me to keep reading, I couldn't put this down and emphatically recommend it to anyone interested in the plight of North Koreans.
I've never had a particular interest in North Korea, but I'm an avid dystopian literature fan, and because of that I was drawn to this book to read more about the parallels between George Orwell's "1984" and present-day North Korea. What I found was a truly amazing tale of a half-dozen defectors who recount their day-to-day lives in the last truly Communist enclave.
Regardless of your general inclination toward this type of book, if you enjoy a good story, this book delivers. Demick makes North Korea come alive, using multiple sources to rebuild accounts of the early lives of the defectors she interviewed. Not everyone she spoke with made it into the book as central characters, but she uses pieces of her many contacts to build a full tale. For example, in the notes section of the book, she mentions how one defector's explanation of the Chongjin geography was used as she told the story of another defector.
I truly had no idea the depths of suffering that North Koreans have endured. After finishing the book, I went on to YouTube to re-watch footage of mourners of Kim Jong-Il, and I had a whole new understanding of why they were behaving in that way. The truth is devastating, and this book illuminates it in a rare way.
From tales of strange customs and shocking Communist rules, to amusing anecdotes of some of the first days in South Korea for defectors, you'll be totally fascinated. Highly recommended.
Regardless of your general inclination toward this type of book, if you enjoy a good story, this book delivers. Demick makes North Korea come alive, using multiple sources to rebuild accounts of the early lives of the defectors she interviewed. Not everyone she spoke with made it into the book as central characters, but she uses pieces of her many contacts to build a full tale. For example, in the notes section of the book, she mentions how one defector's explanation of the Chongjin geography was used as she told the story of another defector.
I truly had no idea the depths of suffering that North Koreans have endured. After finishing the book, I went on to YouTube to re-watch footage of mourners of Kim Jong-Il, and I had a whole new understanding of why they were behaving in that way. The truth is devastating, and this book illuminates it in a rare way.
From tales of strange customs and shocking Communist rules, to amusing anecdotes of some of the first days in South Korea for defectors, you'll be totally fascinated. Highly recommended.
dark
emotional
informative
sad
fast-paced