aylasharii 's review for:

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park, Maryanne Vollers

5.0

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This book was hands down one of the most eye-opening, powerful, and timely books I have read in a long time. Yeonmi Park is an incredible human rights activist, and gives a poignant voice to her people. She is also roughly the same age as me, so while the content wasn’t relatable, her voice was.

This memoir starts in North Korea and details the intricacies of life there, and Yeonmi does a great job of highlighting the ways in which the Kims keep the population in the dark, and under their control. From the outside, it seems impossible that people would live under those circumstances, but by the time you’re done, you understand.

From North Korea, Yeonmi defects and ends up in China, which ends up being a different sort of hell. Yeonmi goes to extraordinary lengths at a very young age to keep her family together. After China, Yeonmi and her mother make it to Mongolia, and finally, to South Korea. This memoir is heart-wrenching. Just because they escaped, doesn’t mean they were safe, and even in South Korea where they’ve settled, Yeonmi and her family are still targeted by North Korea.

This is an incredible story, and I feel everyone would benefit from the read. But if you’re interested, she also has a YouTube channel where she discusses life in North Korea. It’s worth watching as well.