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In Order To Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by [Yeonmi Park]

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Yeonmi Park

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In Order To Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom Kindle Edition

by Yeonmi Park (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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'I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.'

Yeonmi Park was not dreaming of freedom when she escaped from North Korea. She didn't even know what it meant to be free. All she knew was that she was running for her life, that if she and her family stayed behind they would die - from starvation, or disease, or even execution.

This book is the story of Park's struggle to survive in the darkest, most repressive country on earth; her harrowing escape through China's underworld of smugglers and human traffickers; and then her escape from China across the Gobi desert to Mongolia, with only the stars to guide her way, and from there to South Korea and at last to freedom; and finally her emergence as a leading human rights activist - all before her 21st birthday.

'Clear-eyed and devastating' Observer

Length: 290 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
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Product description

About the Author

Yeonmi Park is a human rights activist who was born in North Korea. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Book Description

The incredible autobiography of Yeonmi Park- a North Korean defector who escaped across the Gobi desert and is now a leading spokesperson for human rights at just 24 years old --This text refers to the paperback edition.

ASIN : B00WASR300
Publisher : Penguin (29 September 2015)
Language: : English
File size : 22604 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 290 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 18,834 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 8 in Emigration & Immigration
- 12 in Civil Rights & Liberties (Kindle Store)
- 14 in Political Freedom (Kindle Store)

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3,458 ratings

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Adam

Inspirational Story

Reviewed in Australia on 3 January 2020

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I knew I was going to have trouble reading this book because I had already heard Yeonmi's story a few years earlier in an interview. Still, when I saw she had written a book I had to find out the full story.

Yeonmi’s is an inspirational story about not just overcoming the most brutal regime on the planet, but also the prejudices and personal challenges that followed after the harrowing journey. It opened my eyes to not only the treatment of North Koreans while in their home country, but also during and after their escape to freedom. Even if we have no power to change the regime in the short-term, we all have the power to improve the treatment of North Korean escapees.

I hope Yeonmi never gives up telling her story, as painful as it may be. She has now been thrust into a life of meaning and she should never stop pursuing justice. She is not only a voice for the North Korean people, but she’s a reminder to the west of what we have and what we need to protect: democracy.

PS: I was going to leave this out but I probably should mention it. This book made me contact a volunteer agency in South Korea (still waiting to hear back) to see if I could come do some volunteer work to help some North Korean people integrate into their new lives. I'm not sure what I can offer as I don't speak Korean (I'm now trying to learn), but having read about their treatment, even after overcoming everything they have to, I had to see if I could do something. I had originally thought that South Koreans greet North Koreans as if they were their long lost family members, unfortunately this book made me realise my rose-coloured view of the world was completely wrong. So Yeonmi can add one more person/thing to the list of real changes she's made just by telling her story. It is a story worth telling.

2 people found this helpful

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Brian the Brisbane Lion

Must read story about North Korea

Reviewed in Australia on 4 December 2020

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A very moving story of a 13 year old North Korean girl who escapes North Korea, only to fall prey to people smugglers in China. Eventually she makes it to South Korea,and can tell of the real story of living in the Hermit Kingdom.

One strange thing about living in North Korea; if you live in a high-rise building, the higher up you go, the poorer you are. As there is no (reliable) electricity, rich people live on the ground floor, and the poor have to trudge up stairs to the 8th floor. What a concept.

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christine woodward

A 'can't put down' read

Reviewed in Australia on 22 April 2019

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A brilliant, gutwrenching, impossible to stop reading memoir. I learnt so much more about North Korea and life after that dreadful existence for it's defectors. A book that will open people's hearts to refugees from any oppressive and dangerous countries and reinforce how lucky those of us are to know nothing of such suffering and desperation first hand. The fortunate should always show compassion and help the unfortunate.....there but for the Grace of God....

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Amazon Customer CB happy reader

Amazing Story

Reviewed in Australia on 5 February 2019

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We need books like this to be read in our schools and universities so that everyone can understand the horrors that still go on in this world in places such as North Korea today in this world where so many take life and pleasure as their right. This is an amazing true story of a very courageous young girl. It made me cry but also gave me so much pleasure to see what she has achieved. You are an incredible young lady Yeonmi Park. Thank you for telling your story.

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Amazon Customer

Inspiring true account of a young girls escape from north korea.

Reviewed in Australia on 22 November 2020

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An incredible true story written by an amazing eloquent young woman. Everyone who thinks socialism is a life to aspire to,needs to read this true account of life in north korea. This girl tells it with no holes barred. Her strength and resilience helped her survive. A great read.

One person found this helpful

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Andre

How is this still happening in the twenty-first century?

Reviewed in Australia on 13 December 2020

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A harrowing true life story of a teenagers and her mother's escape from North Korea. Suspense filled and difficult to put down. But it doesn't stop there, you can follow Yeonmi Park's continuing story in social media and on YouTube were you can learn and discover more about her and of the treacherous North Korean dictatorship. I'd already read the eBook, but I needed a hard copy of this book to put on my book shelf!

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Kindle Customer

A must read

Reviewed in Australia on 30 August 2020

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This book gives a deep insight in to the repression of North Korean life and the unimaginable reality it's citizens are forced to call everyday life. What's worse is that they are unaware of their own injustice.

This a brilliant, fascinating story of one girl's escape and if nothing else will leave you feeling grateful for the many things we take for granted in the free world.

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Adele

Bravery of an Extraordinary young girl.

Reviewed in Australia on 16 April 2018

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This book gives us an inside of the brutalities and atrocities of the North Korean regime and the bravery of a beautiful family protecting each other. Members of this family eventually escape to the South becoming the voice of all their friends and the people left behind.

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Top reviews from other countries

cyborg vole

Amazing read I just wish it was fiction rather than a true account. A life changing read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 October 2017

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Both the best and the worst thing I have ever read. Best in the fact that you can see and understand the suffering and anguish of the people of North Korea and the worst because no one should ever have to experience the things which Yeonmi has suffered. This book makes you realise how lucky you are to live in a country like the UK or US where you don't have to worry about angering a regime or starving to death. This book gives you a totally new outlook on life and I can guarantee that it will make you appreciate what you have much more than you did before.

23 people found this helpful

Jasper

Good read for people interested in North Korean fugutives. Read as addition to 'Dear Leader' or 'Escape from Camp 14'

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 October 2017

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I've read quite a few books written by North Korean escapees over the last year or so ("Dear Leader", "Escape From Camp 14", "Aquariums of Pyongyang", and "Nothing to Envy" to name a few) and I have mixed feelings about "In Order To Live".

Don't get me wrong, it's a good book. It's well written and Yeonmi's story is at times emotional and gripping. Yet at other times, it's an accounting that is not as interesting as I wanted it to be. Honestly, part II and III of the book are most outstanding. Her and her mothers hardships in China, the search for her sister and how hard it is for North Koreans once they're out of North Korea (with no understanding of the world beyond their indoctrinated view of NK and the 'enemies' outside) is a gripping and insightful read and should be read by anyone with interest in what happens 'after North Korea'. The (re)introduction process into South Korea's society and her subsequent actions to create awareness around NK is an interesting read as well.

Overall, a great book on everything "after NK", and a good book on "inside NK", but if you want to know more about inside NK, also do read "Dear Leader" and "Escape from Camp 14" for two excellent viewpoints of two ends of life in North Korea.

13 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

An extraordinary book, by an extraordinary woman

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 April 2017

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I have had this on my Kindle for a few months now and kept shifting it to the back of the queue. I had just finished a really entertaining and laugh out loud funny book and decided that a change of pace would be a good thing. That, I read this book in one day, says all you need to know. I never read books in one day, even books I really enjoy take me on average 4 or 5 days. I was reading this until 4:30am, I could not put it down.
Most of us think that North Korea is that miserable country run, by that crazy adult/child like dictator with bad hair and a worse temper (No, not Trump (that comment is going to age badly)). A country who for whatever reason seems able to keep the rest of the world at bay with threats. A country that has nuclear capability, that likes to show off it's military strength. A country I am sure most of us would love to see blown off the face of the earth. And, then you read this book and you realise behind all the posturing and bluster are many millions of real people who live miserable lives, brainwashed from birth (like all good religions) to believe in the Kims as gods. Gods with extraordinary powers. A nation of people who all spy on each other (like all the best dictatorships). A country where it takes just one member of the family to fall from grace, for the whole family to suffer possibly never to recover. A country where a trip to prisons named re-education centres, or worse labour camps can be as good as a death sentence and will certainly change your life for ever. A nation where the vast majority of the people have literally nothing, barely enough food, no access to media outside of the non stop propaganda pumped out by the government. Basically, the majority of people in North Korea live miserable lives with little food or pleasure. Yet, the brainwashing goes deep and even those that manage to escape find it hard to shake off the belief that the Kim's are gods and their country is the best in the world (to begin with!) This book is written by an extra ordinary women who had been through more by the age of 15 than most of us in a lifetime. A women who endured hardship in her home country. Then arrived in China expecting to taste freedom only to find a whole different scenario. This book is a must read. Also China has a massive role to play in this. China is the scene of massive people trafficking. Of forced repatriation (leading to almost certain death) of forced rape. The fact that this young lady managed to escape North Korea and then had to undergo a whole new ordeal in China would have made most of us just give up. The Chinese have been supportive of the North Korean government and the forced repatriation is the reason that people from North Korea are bought and sold in China, as slaves, as prostitutes as wives, as all three. If China would just allow these people passage through there nation, most of the trafficking would go away. Yeonmi Park is doing an amazing job, telling people what hardships normal people face in North Korea, for people to understand what the real people have to live through. Her story, her life since leaving the 'Hermit Kingdom' her achievements, her willingness to tell her story, all her story, including all the horrific parts she would rather forget, mark her down as a very special person. It would have been so easy to escape North Korea and just fade away. But she has a higher purpose now and I truly wish her all the best as she tells it like it is, regardless of the threats still being received from her evil homeland.

85 people found this helpful

Pomegranate

Insight to North Korea

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 August 2020

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This book provides an insight to what life is like in North Korea. The things the author went through is horrifying and hard to believe. Having read some of the reviews provided on here, some have said that there are inconsistencies and contradictories in her story. Whilst reading the book, I did not spot them, but then this was the first book I've read from a North Korean defector retelling their story on their escape from North Korea. It's best to get a broader reading on this subject area in order to have a better understanding.

4 people found this helpful

Dunvant

Didnt always add up to me

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 October 2019

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Interesting story about a young girl and her mother getting out of North Korea and ending up in South Korea and USA. Generally believable though some areas seem too simple eg frequent references to extreme poverty and spying by everyone yet some of the family frequently made train trips to Pyongyang a journey of over 200 miles as the crow flies. Surely the authorities would be watching these journeys? Her escape seemed rushed and her survival in the Gobi desert felt too unlikely to be so straight forward. With the need for extreme speed to cross into China I was sceptical about the photos being taken in NK as extreme poverty was the order of every day.
Despite this I finished the book (its an easy read) and was keen about the camps in South Korea for rehabilitation in the real world.

2 people found this helpful

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