I have been startledly interested in North Korea for a longish time and I have read a few books about it, all non-fiction. This was the first novel about North Korea and what a ride it was. The author’s note at the end made the book even more unreal, it is still unbelievable to me how a country like North Korea can exist. This was an audiobook of 19 ish hours and it just flew by.

The story bound the lives of the three main characters together delicately. It obviously wasn’t a pleasant book with some of the worst phenomena North Korea has to offer, but I think it’s important for people in the West to know what is happening in North Korea.


A note about the reader of Finnish audiobook: it really did my head in how the reader didn’t know _anything_ about pronunciaton of korean names and words. I don’t know much either, but I do know for example how the car brand Hyundai is pronounced and it gives an idea how y acts in korean. I was annoyed until the end about this.