“…the biggest deception of all, and the kindest there is, is to be deceived. That could mean invaluable comfort to the other.”

The only criticism I have for this book is that it was too short. In the hands of another author this would have been a monster 900-page generational epic. Mirinae Lee isn’t here for that.

This is a dense, harrowing, upsetting and wonderful book. It’s not quite 300 pages, but every word is chosen carefully, for efficiency, clarity and impact. Entire decades are covered in a few short, intense pages. 

It’s full of horror — the narrator at the heart of this book has lived through enough physical, psychological and sexual trauma for several lifetimes (if you’re sensitive to those things, maybe skip this), but the book itself is warm, cathartic and hopeful. There were maybe a dozen times in this book I stopped to re-read sections that were just beautifully written.

In the acknowledgements section, the author cites several works that she used to inform her writing about conditions in North Korea, and I can endorse a couple of them myself: Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick and The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre are both also excellent, and I’m going to track down the others she lists. 

I devoured this, wishing there was much much more. Suggest you do the same.