In Order to Live - 10/02/2021

 Hello Freedom Lovers, 

Book 44: In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom (7/10)

Premise: One girls life going from growing up in North Korea, Escaping to China, Mongolia, South Korea, and her eventually the United States. 

Starting out we have Yeonmi, a young North Korean girl who loves her country, and is instep with it's ideals. Slowly until her early teenage years she starts to distrust it more and more as her father gets in legal trouble and is taken away, and her mother has to leave them for long periods of time. 

Following rumors her older sister, and then Yeonmi and her mother escape to China. Being sold from person to person, she soon realizes that the ones who helped her escape our really just human trafficers who are selling her and her mother as wives to Chinese men who cannot find wives. While the food is plentiful and the country is much better than what she left she is in no way happy with her situation. 

Working as a online chat worker, being "married" to an older man, she amasses a few small victories. Her Mother is returned to her, and her father eventually makes it to her as well, but soon falls ill and passes away. She can't work any regular job since she does not have papers, and is forced to live in the shadows. This only intensifies as China cracked down on North Korean immigrants when preparing for the influx of international visitors for the Beijing Olympics.

Never to be broken Yeonmi finds a way for her and her mother to escape to Mongolia with missionaries. After crossing her second boarder she is treated like a prisoner. Interrogated and held, the Mongolian police has a strenuous relation with China and do not always want to help people escaping to make things worse. Eventually however she is sent to South Korea, where years ago she originally dreamed of. 

In South Korea she is treated like a second class citizen. People often look down on her for where she came from. Yeonmi spirit as even is unbreakable and she decides that she is going to catch up from her missed school and makes it to college. Eventually 7 years after she escaped South Korea she makes it to the United States and gains some international fame. She is currently a Humans Rights Activist working to help other people who are in North Korea. 

Yeomi's story is heart breaking and also a testament to the human spirit. Her description of events, and unbreaking spirit reminds me of the earlier "No Wall Too High" I reviewed. However I found this one both more enjoyable to read and a more engaging story.

So never let your spirit break. 

And remember dear readers, Stay Vivid.