What an amazing peek at the mysteries of what daily life is actually like in North Korea. The most recent spurt of news on this hermit kingdom made me eager to learn more, and this wonderfully engaging oral history of six individuals who defected from North Korea was really illuminating. Barbara Demick is a journalist for the LA Times and spent years in candid interviews with these six (and more), as they shared their obedience to, then slowly dawning disillusionment with their homeland preceding their defection. This is a straightforward and moving piece of journalism, similar to The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Ann Fadiman, and it reads like adventuresome dystopian sci-fi.