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Dec 29, 2011

Shirley rated it:

An amazing, unforgettable book about North Korea. Barbara Demick explores the most closed-off society in the world through the stories of six "ordinary" North Koreans who defect to South Korea beginning in the late 1990s. Through their stories, Demick covers a bit of everything (the pathological weirdness that was/is Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il and the cult of worship - and fear of reprisal - that made people cry harder at the former's death than they ever had in their lives, the role of a total More...

3 comments like (20 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2010

Stuart rated it:

There are few books like this written today: concise, well-researched, plainly yet effectively written, and free of hyperbole. This book is a very personal account of six lives in the failed state of North Korea. The level of deprivation and humiliation these people endure is heartbreaking. The book reads more like an outstanding piece of social anthropology than it does cut and dried journalism. The author is to be commended for her ability to get inside both the hearts and minds of the people More...

0 comments like (33 people liked it)

Oct 05, 2010

Shivesh rated it:

A physician, possessing numerous years of education and selfless service to her people, comes upon a isolated farm in a dark field at twilight. The doctor is starving, malnourished and ravenous. She seeks crumbs, maybe a scrap of corn to eat. Slowly, she makes her way into a barn, musty with the odor of hay and equipment. She has not seen more than a handful worth of white rice in years. Indeed, white rice is a rare luxury in the world she comes from.

Suddenly, she sees in the da More...

0 comments like (34 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2011

Greg rated it:

This is an incredible work of narrative reporting. It’s also a vital document that gives voice to the citizens of a nation that’s committed probably the worst repression of free will in modern history--a nation that keeps its people believing they have “nothing to envy” and that things are much worse in the rest of the world. It’s assembled from a series of interviews with a handful of North Koreans who defected to South Korea at enormous risk, and their stories give a deeply human dimension to More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 06, 2012

Daisy rated it:

She delivered all her children by herself without even the help of a midwife. One was born on the side of the road--Mrs, Song had been walking home with a basket of laundry. With the first birth, her mother-in-law cooked her a soup with slimy ribbons of seaweed, a traditional Korean recipe to help a new mother recover her iron. The next time her mother-in-law--disappointed by the birth of another girl--threw the seaweed at Mrs. Song to make the soup herself. After the third girl, she stopped More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 11, 2010

Jessica rated it:

I really enjoyed this book. I was suprised at how much I didn't know about the history of North Korea. Reading about the famine and kindergardeners that were dying from hunger was very hard...sobering. And I thought it was very interesting that even when the main people portrayed in the book made it to South Korea, their lives were still hard. Transitioning to a modern society and leaving behind their loved ones. The author did an amazing job at capturing all the emotions as their lives pro More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2011

Jessica rated it:

I am grateful to my local librarian who keeps stocking the new fiction and nonfiction shelves with exactly the books I've been wanting to read...

This is as eye-opening, amazing, as I'd thought it would be: a fascinating window into a little-known regime...Demick follows six individuals, each of whom eventually escapes, and we see them from childhood on into adulthood and defection. The horrors of the 'most repressive regime in the world' are legion and the chronic undernourishment o More...

4 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2011

Rachel rated it:

Another book that makes me wish I listened more in History class. Throughout this book I had to keep reminding myself this is happening in the 90's not 70 years ago. The writer did an amazing job at allowing you to empathize with each character and see this troubled Country through their eyes. I was amazed to learn about South Koreas laws allowing the North Koreans citizenship, with money, & a program to help them transition. Sad to hear of the struggles they still had adapting in such a differe More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Ruth rated it:

Oh, my gosh, what an engrossing read! I found a clip on Youtube from a U.S. traveller who cadged his way into North Korea, and took some footage (illegally, since it was technically forbidden, though none of his mandatory guides stopped him...), and it appalled and fascinated me at the same time. So when I saw this subtitle, Ordinary Lives in North Korea, I was fascinated. What was life like in this backward little police state with nuclear weapons?

And it was worse than I'd dreamed. More...

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Jan 20, 2012

Caitlin rated it:

Easily one of the best nonfiction books I've read and an amazing work of journalism. I am extremely interested in all things North Korean so may be biased, but I think even if you had never heard of the place, and picked this up, you'd love this book. By the end, I actually found these stories very moving.
It follows five North koreans through their lives in the North, their growing disillusionment with the regime, their escape and confusing attempts to start life over again in China or the More...

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Jan 12, 2012

Melissa rated it:

Ever since I finished this book I can't stop thinking about it. I started reading it just before Kim Jong-il's death, and reading it during the country's period of mourning made it all the more poignant. I'd heard some things about North Korea in passing, but the details in this book absolutely stunned me. An entire generation physically stunted, and millions dead, due to malnutrition because Kim Jong-il wouldn't let aid workers pass out rations outside the government-approved capital. Prison ca More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

Lydia rated it:

I listened to the audiobook as I was driving to and from work, and this one captivated me from beginning to end. I think the best nonfiction books inspire you to dig deeper, and make you want to tell their stories to your friends. The descriptions of the big events in the book, Kim Il-Sung's death, the 1990's famine (which I was completely ignorant of, as I was a teenager busy wallowing in my first-world problems) made me sit in the car long after I had arrived home. However, it's the small deta More...

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Dec 25, 2011

Ann rated it:

My timing was amazing. I was in the middle of reading this book about life under the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Il, died and appointed his 28 year old son, Supreme Leader. This may be the best book written about life in a country that exists in a time warp and is closed to the outside world. The journalist, Barbara Demick, spent 15 years visiting North Korea and interviewing those who had defected to South Korea.

The stories she tells are harrowing as she follows the lives of 6 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 19, 2011

Dzver rated it:

Прочетох тази книга, защото исках да науча какво е положението в Северна Корея в момента. Авторката е компилирала няколко истории на бегълци и техните семейства. Описва начина им на живот, културата, какво "прелива чашата", как бягат и как се адаптират към съвременния свят. Описва кастовата им система, половата дискриминация, сексуалната култура, базирана на средновековни обичаи и нелегални аборти, медицината и други тъжни подробности.

Ако вярваме на разказаното, Северна Корея More...

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Dec 10, 2011

Melissa rated it:

I never realized before reading this book that I didn't know one thing about North Korea. And it would seem that I'm not alone. Practically no one knows anything about North Korea, because North Koreans are completely cut off from communication to other countries (hell, there aren't phone and mail services within their OWN country to communicate with). Foreigners are let into very limited spaces, which are tailored to give the foreigners a particular (false) impression of the country. The on More...

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Dec 03, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

This was a work book club choice. I would not normally choose such a book and was a bit dubious when I heard this was the one chosen. As the good sport that I am I agreed to read it...so glad that I did. This book was both factual and moving at the same time. I loved that it got me thinking and contemplating the way of life for North Koreans, alongside the role that the World has played in it's current affairs. From a political standpoint I was interested (as an American) to see what a sign More...

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Nov 20, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

Very interesting and educational glimpse into North Korea. I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't really know much about North Korea before reading Nothing to Envy, nor had I given it much thought. Meanwhile, for 50+ years an entire country has been living under a harsh dictatorship. AND, millions of people died of starvation -- in the late 90s. How could I have been unaware of such a large tragedy that happened so recently, when I was past college and fully adult?

The best part of More...

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Nov 01, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

This book was simultaneously a page-turner and hard as hell to read. I had trouble falling asleep last night because of it, and when I did I had some unsettling nightmares. This isn't a book I can read, write an "oh that's nice, that definitely added to my life" type of review and go about my day. This is some seriously skillful nonfiction. It calls to mind being fourteen and reading Wild Swans. There's a similar structure to both works; history of a country to get the big picture, and More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2011

Mark rated it:

I took one day out of my paternity leave for pleasure reading. I selected a new Kindle book I bought after hearing the author interviewed on NPR: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. It was utterly fascinating. I devoured it.

Demick weaves a gripping narrative which puts the reader in contact with daily life north of the DMZ. And the story is more than just exciting and interesting: the relationship between Mi-ran and Jun-Sang (not their real names) has to be one of the most More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2011

Jen rated it:

I'm closer to 3 1/2 stars than 4.

This is a fascinating report on North Korea as we have never been allowed to see it. Although Barbara Demick has only been allowed into the country several times, she did her research and interviewed many defectors to create this historical portrait of the country from the Korean War to the present.

Although it was a very interesting book, I couldn't give it 5 stars because I have been spoiled by reading books like Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 24, 2011

Zöe rated it:

An incredible book! I rarely cry for books though am a greedy reader. "Nothing to Envy" makes me cry many times. I can't stop reading it.

I never try to understand North Korea, for Chinese people like me, North Korea is ignored. We are proud of our market economy, and making jokes of North Korea partner. But I don't know North Korea people live in such a condition in 1990s, when I was a troubled teenager.

Some of the stories sound familiar, yes, it happened in Ch More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 06, 2011

Dave rated it:

The book gives us a backstage look into the bizarre disaster that is North Korea. Here we have the black comedy of the government slogans (i.e., "Let's just eat two meals a day!") to the stark tragedy of real famine and death that came to them after losing their communist bloc support. Especially under Kim Il-Sung, the whole nation had the feeling of a Jonestown cult. Sleep and food deprivation, coupled with intense propaganda made it so that the death rate soared among the elderly More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 02, 2011

Sara rated it:

I would recommend this book to everyone - it was fabulous! The only reason it's not a five star review from me is that having read it once, I don't see myself rereading it, though it has reawakened my curiosity about North Korea. This book helped me to understand why this regime hasn't collapsed yet even though 'North Korea watchers' (such as myself) have been waiting for and predicting its demise for ages. As the author says in her epilogue, "against all odds, North Korea survived the brea More...

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Sep 02, 2011

Zinger rated it:

I pre-ordered this book and received it right when it came out, but just now have finished it. I wanted to read it to gain some insight into how people survive and live under a police state, and to understand more of the people of North Korea. The book covered exactly what I had hoped.

The author did a really good job of sticking to the story without adding her own commentary on the ruthless, stupid, evil,…failed leadership the North Korean people are enslaved under. If I was writi More...

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Aug 30, 2011

Anastasia rated it:

It was in March 1999 that Dr Kim left the fatherland. She couldn’t take any more. She had already given up paediatric medicine because she could no longer bear to look into the eyes of the starving children. She switched to pure research, which at least allowed her to get away from the dying, from people she was completely unable to help. But the doctors were starving too; more time was spent in foraging for food than medical work.

Kim dropped in weight to eighty pounds; her breas More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2011

Joe rated it:

An instant classic, one of the best works of journalistic non-fiction I've read.

Demick sustains the gripping prose of page-turning investigative reporting without falling into the traps of purple prose (see: Columbine) or memoir filler (see: Factory Girls). She finds a half dozen truly fascinating North Koreans, and uses them each for a dual purpose: to show what's needed to survive the harrowing grayness of life in the DPRK, and the extraordinary measures needed to eventually escap More...

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Aug 03, 2011

David rated it:

In the aftermath of the Korean war my mother's brother left an enigmatic note on his pillow before stepping out for school. He never returned and the family lamented his apparent suicide.

A half century later a list of names is published in Koreas' national paper. Part of the warming relations between North and South Korea, it offered the chance for families separated by the border to connect. So far nearly 20 thousand Koreans have participated in face-to-face meetings. My uncle's name More...

1 comment like (13 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2011

Joseph D. rated it:

I debated taking the time to get through this book, because, who really cares or wants to look behind the curtain into the lives of people living under such regimes. It would be better to just continue living my blessed life in the good ol' U.S. of A. Then again, I was interested in how a whole society could allow themselves to live in such delusional silent desperation. Many parts of this book reminded me of "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins such as the basic refining of society i More...

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Jul 12, 2011

John rated it:

A very well written book based on six people's lives in North Korea and their risky escape to South Korea. The book just rips out your heart again and again. The Communist government requires the North Koreans to work full time with no pay and no food, and then has the audacity to make it illegal to grow, sell or buy food themselves! Either you starve to death or you risk your life stealing or dealing on the black market, if you are caught, they'll give the death sentence for practically nothing More...

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Jul 11, 2011

Jeremy rated it:

Picked up this book on a whim while traveling, and was well-rewarded with a gripping read. The author pulls together the stories of 6 North Koreans from one city in the North of that troubled country, and through marvelous reporting, tells their tragic stories. The suffering is unbelievable, it is very similar to reading accounts of Holocaust survivors. The tremendous moral evil of the Kims and their henchmen is portrayed, not via statistics or rhetoric, but simple stories of actual suffering More...

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