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fiandaca 's review for:
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick
4/22 I'm struck on page 6 by the author's implication that North Koreans are suffering the indignity of not being able to watch television. I expect to learn a lot from this book and certainly have little direct experience (just 4 or 5 months of living in the hills of Riverside Co. with my grandfather) of living without electricity, . . . but I can't get behind the idea that there is some inherent dignity in viewing television.
4/26 So far, this book is BORING! I'll read a little more and see if I can get into it, but I've already abandoned it twice in favor of other books and I'm on page 50, so it's not looking good.
4/30 I stuck with it and ultimately enjoyed it. A few aspects of Demick's writing bothered me. For example, her implication that seaweed is slimy and gross, and her ignorance re: how little to no chemical fertilizer in North Korea is a good thing for the health of the land there. However, all that pales in the face of the reality of life for North Koreans. I really had no knowledge as to the conditions of life there and now it is quite obvious to me that the population there is starving and suffering under a tyrant. Some of these were very sad tales. I can't imagine having to leave my children behind to save my own life. Heartbreaking.
4/26 So far, this book is BORING! I'll read a little more and see if I can get into it, but I've already abandoned it twice in favor of other books and I'm on page 50, so it's not looking good.
4/30 I stuck with it and ultimately enjoyed it. A few aspects of Demick's writing bothered me. For example, her implication that seaweed is slimy and gross, and her ignorance re: how little to no chemical fertilizer in North Korea is a good thing for the health of the land there. However, all that pales in the face of the reality of life for North Koreans. I really had no knowledge as to the conditions of life there and now it is quite obvious to me that the population there is starving and suffering under a tyrant. Some of these were very sad tales. I can't imagine having to leave my children behind to save my own life. Heartbreaking.