I hadn't heard of this book before I stumbled on it at the library, looking for books for #koreanmarch. I have been reading quite a few stories set in South Korea lately, so I was hoping this would give me more of a North Korean perspective, but it turns out this book is more about being a North Korean refugee.

This book gave me a LOT of feelings. Sometimes it came across to me as book club trauma porn, but at the same time it felt so plausible, and Lee has the red to probably know what she is talking about. I had a lot of fury, reading this, mostly at "Christian" missionaries "helping" North Korean refugees in China — but the west and our infinite appetite for trauma porn is heavily implicated here, too.

A difficult book. Probably a good choice for book clubs, actually. ( )

Granted this fed my North Korea obsession, but I found it a supremely satisfying read. It alternates between three characters who tell their own stories -- all three have distinct voices and don't blend into each other as sometimes happen in books with rotating viewpoints. A slim but powerful read. ( )

An odd book. (Semi-spoilers ahead) The plot, especially around Danny in the later part of the book, can feel almost arbitrary. But if you don't worry about plot, about cause and effect, the writing is so beautiful, so empathic, that even Danny's at-times inexplicable choices almost feel believable. Honestly, I don't know whether that's a flaw or a strength.

July, 2020. On re-reading, I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote that review. Odd? Inexplicable? Arbitrary? What jerk wrote all that? This is a beautiful book that makes all the sad sense in the world. Brilliantly written with three very different, fully realized, believable protagonists. It's impossible to read this and not care and worry about each of them. When I rated it two and a half years ago I gave it three and a half stars. I was being ridiculous & that version of me should never have been trusted. This new version of me, however, is infallible. ( )

Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for a free copy of How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee.

This novel follows three characters -- Danny, Yongju, and Jangmi -- as their lives converge on the border of China and North Korea. Their experiences vary extensively -- American outcast, student from a privileged and prominent family, impoverished smuggler. But all of them deal with issues of identity, freedom, survival, and humanity.

The three main characters are well-developed and heartbreaking. The descriptions of life in North Korea, the treatment of escaped North Koreans by others, and the culture shock they experience are devastating and will stay with me for a long time. There are scenes of horrific and vivid violence, and sometimes what's left implied is even worse.

I've never read a book about North Korea. Most of what I know about the country comes from newspaper articles depicting it as something out of a dystopian film, which, while shocking, takes away from the fact that there are real people living there and it's a genuinely awful thing. So to read something about people, what it's like to live there, what it means to escape, and how just getting across the border isn't enough to describe -- it's harrowing and horrifying without being sensationalized. Lee never uses the sense of humanity, diversity, and individuality within each of the main characters.

It's a difficult book to read. But it's also beautifully-written. The sort of book that I was always eager to get back to but that felt like it was haunting me.

Wonderful, upsetting, and highly recommended. ( )

"China's the worst part-everyone says that. We will get out. We will."
By sally tarbox on 11 November 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
A very well-written and exciting account of three young people who come together in China, just over the border from N Korea. There's Yongju, an academic boy from a highly privileged background; his parents are associates of the Dear Leader. Then they fall from favour and there's a panicking escape...
For working-class Jangmi, the realisation that she's pregnant decides her to cross the river for the sake of her unborn child.
And Danny, an American youth of Korean ancestry, is a troubled (autistic?) albeit bright kid. Bullied at school, gay, in an awkward relationship with his emotionally stunted father, he's sent to stay in China with his mother, who's over there doing missionary work. But when problems ensue, he ends up living rough with the other two...

Brings to life the horrors of N Korea's regime and the trauma of being an illegal immigrant to China. Human trafficking, brutality, betrayal - even living a 'safe' life is not always easy.
Convincingly written, apart from Danny's adventures. From a plausible first few chapters following him through school and summer camp, his personality well delineated, I became unsure that this boy would have chosen to stay with the street kids of China, despite his issues at home.
But still couldn't put it down. ( )