In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom and a New Life

ashley: This book is so inspiring and I would recommend it to anyone! This story will open your eyes, make you cry, and fill you with gratitude. Thank you Yeonmi Park!

United States on Oct 27, 2023

Anuj: Amazing book. Feels a bit like a fluff piece about herself towards the end. But a must read to understand and appreciate our freedom

India on Oct 26, 2023

m: I've just finished the book and honestly it was one of the best I've ever read. I can't really think of much else to say.

United Kingdom on Oct 20, 2023

Richard Nance: Read this story of truth about one's life and the good and bad of our world. Nations on our earth need to be redone. There are too many honest and good people who just want everyone to truly be free, we need leadership that will seek and allow people to be themselves, and allow families to be together.

United States on Oct 17, 2023

Susan Thomas: I have always been fascinated with the Korean culture since my mom was from a small farm land in Korea. When I graduated from college, I headed off to become a helicopter pilot. My first assignment was in Korea. Our mission was to fly the No Fly Line (38th parallel) between North and South Korea. We could see Pyongyang from the air and how dark it was but on those rare occasions. We also saw the massive speakers that would shout out propaganda as well as leaflets North Korea would send to South Korea. We had heard of many stories of how people were treated in North Korea, but this story made me feel what people experienced there. I am glad she had the courage to finally tell her full story because people need to know what goes on. A must read of true survival!

United States on Oct 04, 2023

Kindle Customer: A great read! Couldn’t put it down!
A detailed depiction you just have to read.
Highly recommend this one to anyone!

Australia on Oct 01, 2023

Goofball: THIS BOOK IS SOOOO GOOD!!!!! I didn’t dislike anything. She has an incredible story to tell about her life in North Korea, her family ties, and the hardships they faced, the hardships that all North Koreans still face, except for the very elite in gov’t. She tells her story simply and without embellishment. It’s an easy read and hard to put down until finished. I was amazed to find out that any woman who escapes Notth Korea is trafficked. The story of her life in North Korea, her escape and subsequent trafficking, her escape through Mongolia, her determination to rise up out of her circumstances boggles the mind. This woman is now one of my heroes. I’m bowled over by her sheer determination to get a better life & make something of herself, and to be a voice for the millions of those still living & starving in the “hermit kingdom.” This book should be required reading for everyone in school.

United States on Sep 19, 2023

Esther C.: Muy conmovedor.

Mexico on Sep 11, 2023

John Hopper: This is a memoir by a North Korean defector and now human rights activist. Following precarious years of hardship and malnutrition, Yeonmi at the age of only 13 escaped from her country with her mother in March 2007. Living in the northern border city of Hyesan, China was just across the frozen Yalu river and beckoned with its relative economic prosperity and comparative freedom. But Yeonmi's struggles were only just beginning as her mother was almost immediately raped and then they were bought and sold, and abused by successive waves of human traffickers. After two years in China, and searching for Yeonmi's sister who had defected separately at around the same time, they eventually made their way (counterintuitively from a geographical point of view) via Mongolia, to South Korea. She had been forced to grow up very quickly, having to make life-changing and potentially life-ending decisions, all before she was even 16 years old. But despite that enforced growing up, the very limited confines of her (and of course nearly all her fellow country people's) growing up and education in North Korea meant that she has no concept of freedom or democracy, or even, really tragically, of...

United Kingdom on Feb 21, 2023

Charles Justus Garard: Review of IN ORDER TO LIVE By Yeonmi Park

The key words or phrases appropriate here are starvation, disease, corruption, rape, connections, bribery (seemingly everywhere), propaganda, black market, jammed radio signals, human trafficking, frozen river, no electricity at times, clothing stolen from clotheslines, dogs not kept outdoors at night, mystical powers of leaders, etc.

Are you still with me? Don't worry. There are some words they do not have, a list of no's.
No words for shopping malls, liberty, or love (except for love or worship of the Kims). No tampons for women. No food and very little water during the 1990s famine, no state-controlled economy when Communist countries abandoned them, no business allowed legally outside of state control, no videos with foreign movies or SK TV shows except those smuggled in, no books except those printed by the government with political themes, no eating of cows without permission (one starving man was executed publicly for doing so), etc.

This may seem more like a grade Z melodrama about an exaggerated empire in the Middle Ages than a view of a living hell on earth today, but this is life in North Korea as...

United States on Dec 06, 2016