Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Aquariums Of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-Hwan, Pierre Rigoulot

2 reviews

librarymouse's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

This book is an arresting and immersive look at the unrest and unstable circumstances in North Korea after the withdrawal of Soviet backing. Saturating the entirety of this memoir is the tangible, unsettling reality created in a world in which interpersonal trust is hard to come by and maintain, and individuality is discouraged. Chol-Hwan Kang makes an interesting case for the appeal of Christianity to North Korean refugees in the afterward, noting the gap left behind having been raised within the Kim dynasty's cult of personality, which requires a religious devotion from citizens. Related to that, he notes that he and other refugees craved the offer of unconditional love. The horrors experienced by the prisoners in the camps of North Korea are atrocities, hypocritical, as the author points out, to the party's rhetoric. The offer of a loving doctrine that appears to be embodied wholeheartedly by it's followers must have seemed intoxicating.

This book is a time capsule of North Korea in the 1990s and early 2000s. Looking back from the 2020s, the permeability of the border between North Korea and China, even though it was for a select few, is astounding.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

shellybelly's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Confinement, and Death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Mental illness