"But I was too young to understand what death meant. Even after he passed away, I thought I was going to see him again because he had always managed to come back to me."

This is a compelling read that illustrated vividly the dark and gritty road the North Korean defectors have to go through in order to taste the freedom many of us take for granted. I expected this book to be emotionally charged, just like the other memoirs I read about abuse and dictatorship, and I was not disappointed. It hurts to read how Yeonmi Park was robbed of her childhood in an early age because she so badly wanted to fill up her belly and save her family from starvation. The part where her mother offered herself to be raped in order to protect Yeonmi was appalling but it was a reality. For most North Koreans who escaped to China-- that is their reality. And if you come to think of it, Yeonmi and her family were quite privileged North Korean citizens. If the privileged North Koreans experienced those horror, how grim it must be for the others who do not possess the fortune the Kim family had?

I know that there are some inconsistencies in Yeonmi's story from the dozen interviews she provided (this was addressed in the book) and others think she is calculated and is prone to exaggerating her story to gain Western sympathy. But really, who am I to judge? I was not there when she and her family starved in North Korea. I was not there when she and her mother was trafficked to China. I was not there when she was crossing the Gobi dessert in freezing temperature in hopes to gain the freedom she thought she couldn't have. Exaggeration of the truth seems like such a small sin compared to the horrors North Korean defectors must endure to have a small taste of freedom. Exaggeration of the truth seems like a small sin, especially when it echoed similar experiences from less privileged defectors. It is exaggerated, maybe, but not completely untrue.