Review: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Author: Barbara Demick
Rating: 5 Stars
Review by Shana

A window into North Korea that is poignant, tragic, infuriating, and heartbreaking in turns. Through interviews with a handful of North Koreans who have defected and live in South Korea, along with Demick's tenure covering events in Asia for the LA Times, the book lets the reader glimpse life in North Korea: the crippled economy and chronic food shortages, the tightly controlled media and proscribed political thought, the class structure and family make-up. Demick has illuminated an area that is literally blacked out, both by lack of electricity and a locked-down media. Highly recommended.