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

challenging emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

This was an interesting look into the lives of the average North Korean of a decade and a half ago. The fear mongering of Western media and the violent escalation of North Korean threats against enemy nations and against its own people has made the country into something larger than life in the eyes of the general public. The people of North Korea having to just barely scrape by while their leader lives in luxury and hides the poverty of the average citizen even while seeking aid is horrifying. It's sad to see how little has changed in the last fifteen years.
This book is well written and the firsthand accounts of life in North Korea add weight to the input of what Demick has to add as a foreign journalist.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death and Alcohol

Minor: Addiction, Gun violence, Sexual content, and Abortion