kahn_johnson 's review for:

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

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Stunning and compelling, Barbara Demick interweaves the lives of six North Koreans and their individual journeys to the west. She manages to capture both the harsh realities of the regime, and the famine of the 90s, and the hope and optimism that her subjects now have.

It's both harrowing and uplifting, and a testament to both the the human spirit and human suffering and stupidity.

And the paralells between the NK regime and Orwell's 1984 are shocking - it's like they mistook a piece of fiction for an instruction manual...