Fact-filled yet horrific, human and heart-wrenching(alliteration!) nonfiction. I can't believe how little I knew about what has been/is going on in North Korea, and this book was eye-opening on many levels. It isn't a book you curl up with and read in an afternoon. It's a book you read a chapter of, set down, and go appreciate your life and your country. It isn't for the faint of heart reader. Demick portrays starvation, hardship and loss, but it isn't a one-sided picture. She shows how those who have left their country still have love for it and its people. Moving, intelligent and informative.

I'm not normally drawn in my reading to history of countries, so this is not a natural read for me, but I caught a review of it somewhere, and it sounded pretty extraordinary, and was very highly rated on Goodreads too.

I have not been disappointed. The book is well written, and tells the personal tales of life in North Korea for 6 different defectors who are now living in South Korea. I'm interested in the pressures difficult life circumstances place on people, and how they react, so there's an intersection of interests here for me.

For me, many histories spend too long boring me to death by making sure I understand how truly god-awful life is for these poor suckers, and going on and on about how difficult it is to do every little thing that we in the Western world take for granted. But Barbara Demick avoided making me feel too much like this despite a lot of description along these lines because so very much interest is added by the personal touch of the stories of the hopes and dreams and loves and loyalties of these 6 people. And at the same time, the circumstances of the 6 are so varying, from party loyalists to informers to complete skeptics, to utilitarians, that we do gain a thorough picture of the impact of the economic collapse on the everyday lives of many different strata of pre- collapse society. They start out living in a way which is pretty easy for us westerners to relate to, with a reasonable standard of living possible, but then things just deteriorate more and more badly until they begin to find their energy to dream is gone, and yet their loyalty to the regime which oppresses them is one of the last things to disappear; even when their children are begging and stealing and they are forced to work for nothing and break the law in order to survive, or watch the children they teach in kindergarten die of starvation, they keep on holding to the hope and belief that they are loved and looked after by their General.
The circumstances of their leaving the country is another interesting aspect of this history, as well as the difficulty that they have adjusting to their new country: how those so very used to having all freedoms taken from them, and every facet of their lives proscribed, find the endless choices of democracy and freedom hard to cope with. Very few of these people have no regrets about leaving their tortured lives in North Korea, and some of them actually say that, though they were starving, they would not have left if they'd known what they now do. So in the end, this is a very satisfying read, both for the things that I have learned about the history and culture of another country, and for the usual observations and truths I find I love in fiction, about character and living.

Wonderful read - reads like fiction (but isn't), following the lives of six North Koreans who defect to South Korea. If you want to learn about North Korea, read this book.

Really excellent, compelling read about what life is like in North Korea. Fascinating. I had trouble putting it down.

Such an interesting read- I had NO idea what was really happening in North Korea.