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In Order to Live
A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
417 pages
A harrowing, unputdownable testament to the sheer will to survive and the unimaginable price of freedom.
What it feels like
Reading this memoir feels like holding your breath through a long, dark tunnel. It is a propulsive, deeply harrowing experience that grips you from the first page, driven by an urgent, unflinching narrative voice. The atmosphere is initially claustrophobic and steeped in dread, reflecting a world where mere survival is a daily battle against starvation and totalitarian control. Yet, as the journey unfolds, the heavy, tense mood is pierced by moments of profound resilience and an awakening to the very concept of freedom. The prose is direct and unadorned, stripping away any literary pretense to deliver raw, staggering truths. It will profoundly move readers who seek gripping, real-life stories of human endurance, leaving them forever changed by its testament to the indomitable spirit.
- Mood
- harrowing
- tense
- claustrophobic
- hopeful
- Tone
- unflinching
- earnest
- urgent
- reflective
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- the will to survive · the cost of freedom · human resilience · awakening to truth · trauma and displacement
- The writing
- Direct, unadorned, and deeply personal, prioritizing raw honesty over literary flourish to let the staggering reality speak for itself.
- The arc
- Plunges the reader into suffocating despair and desperate survival before slowly climbing toward a hard-won, empowering liberation.
- Who it's for
- Readers who devour gripping, real-life accounts of extreme survival, human rights, and the indomitable human spirit.
Content notes
- starvation
- human trafficking
- sexual assault
- extreme poverty
- execution
- death of a parent
About the book
"'I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.' Yeonmi Park was not dreaming of freedom when she escaped from North Korea. She didn't even know what it meant to be free. All she knew was that she was running for her life, that if she and her family stayed behind they would die--from starvation, or disease, or even execution. This book is the story of Park's struggle to survive in the darkest, most repressive country on earth; her harrowing escape through China's underworld of smugglers and human traffickers; and then her escape from China across the Gobi desert to Mongolia, with only the stars to guide her way, and from there to South Korea and at last to freedom; and finally her emergence as a leading human rights activist--all before her 21st birthday"--From Penguin Random House website.
Description from Open Library.
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