NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.
As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with … home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?
Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.
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Even though I’d read about the North Korean government’s mind-numbing restrictions and human rights violations the author’s personal journey made it all much more real and horrifying. I was impressed with her courage, intelligence, cleverness, and perseverance in escaping and in her devotion to her family in trying to free them from the oppressive regime. I wished that after the long, terrible ordeal she and her family experienced that they would have had more uplifting times once they escaped, but perhaps that’s a story for a future book. After reading this memoir I was even more grateful for the U.S. Constitution and our democracy, despite some of its less enlightened eras.
This book was a real page turner for me.
The true story of a girl escaping from North Korea and trying to avoid capture in China and being returned to face execution or death in a concentration camp. Hard to put down.
Inspiring story about escape from N Korea
Another story of leaving ones homeland and the hardships that show determination and character.
Over the past year, I’ve read about 20 books on North Korea. This memoir was one of the most poignant and so informational!
Great book. Learned a lot about North Korea and China.
You will not want to put this book down. It’s written very thoughtfully, vividly with great descriptions of all she went through.
I don’t generally read biographies, this one had me from the start.
I feel it’s a must read.
Fascinating story – nonfiction
Honest….
True story of a 17-year-old girl who escapes from North Korea on her own.
This is the true story of the author’s life in North Korea and how she defected from a country that is trapped with a brutal communist leader. She lives near the border of China and dreams of crossing to a better life.
One night, when things have gotten so bad for her family, she makes the escape to China. The family has friends right across the border (smuggling trade was big where she lived in North Korea) and they agree to help her make safe passage. She has relatives in China, and she convinces her friends across the border to take her to them. The relatives had no idea she was coming, but welcomed the 17 year old and agree to hide her. She spends her days, weeks, months with her relatives learning Mandarin and hiding the fact that she escaped from North Korea.
Before she knows it, 2 years have passed and she feels that she has overstayed her welcome. She makes plans to get a job, and get her own place in China and leaves her relatives safety. She spends a decade in China hiding in plain site.
Homesickness, and worry about her mother and her younger brother make her realize that somehow she must return home. She meets a man that is from South Korea and he agrees to help her get her family to safety. With skill and perserverance she makes her way and starts the plan to move her mother and brother to the south. It takes many months to get her mother and brother to safety after convincing her mother she had to leave.
This was a great book. It gives you a good insight to what it is like for those living in North Korea. This book covers the 1990’s and early 2000’s – not that far in the past to imagine that this is going on now in this country. The citizens are trapped in a dictatorship and fear for their lives on a daily basis. One mis step could mean execution without a trial.
What she went through to escape, and then try and get her family to do the same is harrowing. She is imprisoned and interrogated and her family goes through the same just to leave North Korea for a better, freer life. They had been brainwashed their whole lives about what the world around them was like, and were shocked to find what it really was. I commend her for leaving, especially at a young age with no money and hardly any contacts to save herself and those she loves.
I recommend you reading this book. I think it gives us an eye opening experience of what it is like for the the citizens of North Korea.
Memoir. A gripping story of growing up in North Korea in the 80s and 90s, then escaping to China at age 17, almost on a lark. Once there, she has to hide her identity or be shipped back to North Korea where she would be severely punished. Eventually she learns she can request asylum in certain countries, including South Korea. Around age 30, she achieves this. Then she has to get her mother and brother out of North Korea, which turns out to be another harrowing sequence of moves taking them to Laos where they are detained for months before they finally make it Seoul. But the move is not without ambivalence as they try to adjust to a very foreign country. Lee becomes a voice against the human rights violations that are rife in North Korea. She marries an American man. A TED talk in the US brings her and her cause considerable attention. A deeply moving and inspiring story of survival and ultimately of thriving, told largely dispassionately.
I was so in awe at the strength and determination to save her life and her families lives for the better.
This story was enlightening regarding life in North Korea.
I thought it was fabulous and extremely inspiring. Ms. Lee was beyond brave! I highly recommend this book
It was very well written and thought provoking given the current times and our emerging relationship with North Korea
An excellent story of escape from N. Korea
Epic memoir. What a beautiful testimony to the strength of one womans spirit
This story opened my eyes to what it’s like to live in a totalitarian dictatorship where those that ‘govern’ are completely out of touch with the reality. Shocking yet inspiring for the way this woman perseveres. I see the whole world differently as a result of reading this book.