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4.47 AVERAGE
4.47 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I added this book on my to do list when seeing the diplomatic efforts by the DPRK, South Korea and the US to move closer towards reunification. I was not disappointed.
A very well written book giving a glimpse of life in North Korea through the moving yet ordinary stories of 6 normal people.
This book goes beyond what we normally see and think through traditional media.
A must read if you want to understand how is daily life in North Korea.
A very well written book giving a glimpse of life in North Korea through the moving yet ordinary stories of 6 normal people.
This book goes beyond what we normally see and think through traditional media.
A must read if you want to understand how is daily life in North Korea.
fast-paced
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
I found this book on display at the library with the theme of armchair travel. Nothing to Envy is a fascinating story of the lives of various North Korean defectors and what their daily lives were like. Demick does a great job of weaving the stories together, and leaving your interested, curious, but not wallowing in sadness, though there were parts in the middle that were pretty tough to read. I will look into reading more of Demick's work.
This is a very readable book about the lives of six ordinary people who have lived through some rather extraordinary events and are able to tell their version of life in North Korea. The tales of the famine and the brainwashing are simply awful. You turn the pages and wonder how anyone could live through that. They were merely surviving from one so-called meal to the next. The way they decide to leave North Korea comes across as surprisingly undramatic. Oh, yes, it was dangerous, but there wasn't the cloak-and-dagger drama I had expected. That made it all the more poignant - why didn't more try to leave? And once across the border in China, why didn't they move as far away as they could as soon as they could. The depth to which they were brainwashed was incredible. I simply couldn't imagine it. Mrs. Song was so adamantly pro-North Korean for so long that I wondered what made her finally make the move to South Korea. It's the ordinariness of these people's lives that makes the story so gripping. As I sit in my comfortable home reading this book, I can't help wonder how many people are starving in North Korea today. I think about the side-effects of malnutrition an entire generation (or two) and how anyone could lead an entire country down such a path. When I read about the difficulties of the North Korean defectors in South Korea or the attitude of South Koreans toward the idea of all of North Korea opening up one day, I can't help but compare it to today's refugee stories in Europe. We who have all the opportunities at our fingertips simply don't what it is like to not have them. I don't know if this is a book that "all politicians ought to read" or what. I do think all ordinary people ought to give it a try.
Equally fascinating and heartbreaking. The varying perspectives collectively give a lot of insight into the mysterious country.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced