A review by cemills
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick

5.0

I. Ate. This. Up.
Barbara Demick brings to life the story of six North Koreans, all of different ages and backgrounds, and provides a look into what life is really like in North Korea... at least in the 70s 80s and 90s.
I learned so many new things about like in the DPRK that I didn't.
Like citizens don't shop because the government supposedly buys them everything they need.
In the 90s when the country thought it was going to go to war with the US college students had to sign papers IN BLOOD saying they would go to war for the country if needed!?
The love story that runs throughout this book is BEAUTIFUL and heartbreaking and frustrating.
I want to find a book just like this one that shows what life is like in 2020.