Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country.
The harrowing true story of one man’s life in-and subsequent escape from-North Korea, one of the world’s most brutal totalitarian regimes. Finn #CJSReads REVIEW: They Know Not What They Do by J.An Amazon Charts Most Read and Most Sold book. REVIEW: A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa REVIEW: Dominic by Mark Pryor REVIEW: The Woman in the Window by A.J.REVIEW: Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly.Sur La Table: Cooking Class - New Year's Celebrati.REVIEW: A Map of the Dark by Karen Ellis REVIEW: Broken Moon by Sarah Beth Moore REVIEW: Paper Ghosts by Julia Heaberlin REVIEW: Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant #CJS.SPOTLIGHT: A Reckoning in the Back Country by Ter.James COVER REVEAL: A Leak of Madness by Alice J. REVIEW: The Storm King by Brendan Duffy #CJSReads REVIEW: A Map of the Dark by Karen Elli.REVIEW: Just Between Us by Rebecca Drake REVIEW: Lie with Me by Sabine Durrant BLOG TOUR & REVIEW: What She Left by Rosie Fiore.BLOG TOUR & REVIEW: The Second Cup by Sarah Mari.Cooke SPOTLIGHT: Earthbound by Gwendoline Courreges REVIEW: The Social Affair by Britney King REVIEW: I Know My Name by C.J.GIVEAWAY & Release Day Info! The Social Affair by.REVIEW: The Girl on the Velvet Swing by Simon Baa.SPOTLIGHT: In the Land of Milk and Honey by Nell.REVIEW: The Night Market by Jonathan Moore #allth.REVIEW: Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan PAPERBACK RELEASE & GIVEAWAY! The Final Girls by.Tucker REVIEW: Match Made in Manhattan by Amanda Stauffe. REVIEW: The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert REVIEW: The Night Trade by Barry Eisler REVIEW: Into the Black Nowhere by Meg Gardiner COVER REVEAL: The Ganga Shift by Mary Bernsen REVIEW: Killer Choice by Tom Hunt REVIEW: Keep Her Safe by K.A.He didn't go through all of that and manage to escape just to not be heard. At the very least, let his story get out there. An extremely emotional read but one that should be read. for all the Koreans and Japanese living there in squalor as death surrounds them at every turn. but then saying it was necessary to say to show exactly how bad they had it. At one point he even apologies to the reader.
At 178 pages, Masaji manages to put you right in there with him. Watching family members, children and seniors alike, dying all around you. Becoming walking skeletons and deciding that dying trying to escape was better than the alternative - because clearly dying was going to happen anyways. Decades of wondering how the government did NOTHING that it promised them. Decades of trying not to get shot, beaten up or turned away simply for being 1/2 Japanese - something that is (obviously) out of his control. Decades of trying not to starve to death. That's thirty-six (36) years of him living in North Korea with his family. Phew - I'm still trying to wrap my feelings around this one. Turns out, it may as well be a horror book. and by that I mean PISSED OFF! However, when Ashley at Amazon Publishing gave me this book, I couldn't NOT read it. I always assumed that these types of books would be the only ones that would get me "triggered". As a half South Korean woman, I also typically avoid reading anything regarding North Korea. When I read nonfiction/memoirs, I typically stay somewhat within the same genre - true crime, etc. My first love in books is horror followed closely by psychological thrillers.