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spiffybumble 's review for:
In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
by Yeonmi Park, Maryanne Vollers
In Order to Live: 10/10
By: Yeonmi Park
In Order to Live is a no-nonsense, no-fluff, hardcore, real, straightforward look at Yeonmi Park’s experience as a child growing up in post-peak North Korea, escaping the country via sexual slavery, and being ostracized and faced with a mountain of challenges once finally reaching South Korea.
This book is fantastic. As a rule, I don’t feel comfortable rating people’s lived experiences as less than five stars, but rest assured that this is a five-star book all on its own. I wonder if the straightforward nature of this book comes from being written by a second (or actually, third) language speaker or if it is intentionally styled in that fashion. Regardless, the effect is that there is little to no fluff, few postulations made on the nature of life, and not many metaphors. It's all left up for the reader to determine, and because of that, when you realize that the book isn’t guiding your emotions at all and yet still impacting and changing you, you realize just how powerful Park’s story really is.
Out of principle, I have always been in favor of treating sex workers as human beings and always been in favor of ‘cleaning’ the sex industry and eliminating human trafficking… but that’s what it’s always been, just a principle. Reading this book, about this thirteen year girl and the men that attempted to rape her every. step. of. the. way. And then seeing the pictures of her and her family in real life? My heart wept, and I hope that yours does too while reading this book. This book will encourage you to take the policy and turn it into action, and if you’re not in a position to donate or volunteer, simply reading this book and educating yourself and spending your attention in this area of life is helpful.
And outside of activism, if you’re looking for inspiration in betterment of yourself, this book is for you too. In Order to Live is inspiring in terms of the raw human spirit Park demonstrates as she describes her teenage years and early adulthood. She caught herself up to the modern world by reading one hundred books a year. There were other things as well, talking, being rejected, studying, living in a library, all of that, but it started with reading one hundred books. Who among us can’t read just one more book a year and better ourselves? Two more? A hundred? You look at the story of this young woman who faced the odds in every aspect and to some degree, you think “How come I’m not doing that?” In Hamilton’s song Hurricane the fictionalized Alexander Hamilton declares that he “wrote his way out of Hell.” In contrast, Park is an example of someone reading her way out of Hell, and she’s real. I had to stop myself after the first fifty pages or so and remind myself that this wasn't Orwellian fiction, it’s all about real people in the real world in real oppressive circumstances, really reading their way out of Hell.
I’m sorry if this review has turned into a soap box for me to preach off of, but that’s the effect it had on me. This book has made me want to get up and do something. If your heart is pulled towards human trafficking, government oppression, learning about life in impoverished Asia, or anything I’ve mentioned in this review, I implore you to read this memoir.
By: Yeonmi Park
In Order to Live is a no-nonsense, no-fluff, hardcore, real, straightforward look at Yeonmi Park’s experience as a child growing up in post-peak North Korea, escaping the country via sexual slavery, and being ostracized and faced with a mountain of challenges once finally reaching South Korea.
This book is fantastic. As a rule, I don’t feel comfortable rating people’s lived experiences as less than five stars, but rest assured that this is a five-star book all on its own. I wonder if the straightforward nature of this book comes from being written by a second (or actually, third) language speaker or if it is intentionally styled in that fashion. Regardless, the effect is that there is little to no fluff, few postulations made on the nature of life, and not many metaphors. It's all left up for the reader to determine, and because of that, when you realize that the book isn’t guiding your emotions at all and yet still impacting and changing you, you realize just how powerful Park’s story really is.
Out of principle, I have always been in favor of treating sex workers as human beings and always been in favor of ‘cleaning’ the sex industry and eliminating human trafficking… but that’s what it’s always been, just a principle. Reading this book, about this thirteen year girl and the men that attempted to rape her every. step. of. the. way. And then seeing the pictures of her and her family in real life? My heart wept, and I hope that yours does too while reading this book. This book will encourage you to take the policy and turn it into action, and if you’re not in a position to donate or volunteer, simply reading this book and educating yourself and spending your attention in this area of life is helpful.
And outside of activism, if you’re looking for inspiration in betterment of yourself, this book is for you too. In Order to Live is inspiring in terms of the raw human spirit Park demonstrates as she describes her teenage years and early adulthood. She caught herself up to the modern world by reading one hundred books a year. There were other things as well, talking, being rejected, studying, living in a library, all of that, but it started with reading one hundred books. Who among us can’t read just one more book a year and better ourselves? Two more? A hundred? You look at the story of this young woman who faced the odds in every aspect and to some degree, you think “How come I’m not doing that?” In Hamilton’s song Hurricane the fictionalized Alexander Hamilton declares that he “wrote his way out of Hell.” In contrast, Park is an example of someone reading her way out of Hell, and she’s real. I had to stop myself after the first fifty pages or so and remind myself that this wasn't Orwellian fiction, it’s all about real people in the real world in real oppressive circumstances, really reading their way out of Hell.
I’m sorry if this review has turned into a soap box for me to preach off of, but that’s the effect it had on me. This book has made me want to get up and do something. If your heart is pulled towards human trafficking, government oppression, learning about life in impoverished Asia, or anything I’ve mentioned in this review, I implore you to read this memoir.