| Name of the Book | In Order To Live |
| Author | Yeonmi Park |
| Publisher and Year of Publishing | Penguin Books Ltd; Reprint Edition 27 September 2016 |
| Price | ₹489 Paperback (Amazon) |
CHECKLIST Rating: 5/5
Reviewer: Puhüto Kezo Bcom 3rd Semester, Department of Commerce and Management, Tetso College
We tell ourselves stories in order to live – Joan Didion
‘In Order to Live’ is a non- fictional book written by Yeonmi Park (a North Korean defector). This book is a memoir which apprise the story of Park’s journey to freedom.
The book consist of three sections namely North Korea, China and South Korea and each section consists of different chapters.
The first section talks about Park’s childhood days in North Korea and how she grew up struggling to survive in the corrupted country
The second section talks about her escape to China. This section describes her adolescent life facing immense sufferings of sexual slavery, human trafficking, exploitation etc.
The third section talks about her successful escape to South Korea where she commence a new chapter of life. This section brings contentment to the protagonist as well as to the readers.
Summary
Yeonmi Park was born in North Korea and brought up in the brutal and paranoid atmosphere of the Kim dictatorships. She grew up without knowing the concept of love and freedom. Being brainwashed by their supreme leaders, she believed that North Korea was the best country in the world. However, after encountering the harrowing plight in North Korea, Park and her mother decided to fled the country to find a more comfortable live by risking their life.
Park and her mother defected North Korea when she was just 13 years old with the hope to find a better lives and her elder sister (Eun-mi) . Inspite of the adversity, they ended up in China facing tremendous struggle of human trafficking, sexual slavery, exploitation etc.
Eventually, they made it to South Korea two years later rescued by the Christian Missionaries. South Korea marked a new beginning in their life fulfilling all their hopes in the end. The family reunited after finding the true freedom and her sister who went missing ever since she left North Korea.
One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide – Brene Brown
This book is written in simple language and any beginner reader can understand straightforwardly. I myself fitted adequately and enjoyed every bit of reading this book.
The author of this book delivers her story as a light of inspiration and hope to those who are on the verge of giving up, and conveys life lesson messages to the readers through her story. This book teaches the readers to not lose hope even in the darkest moments, yet encourages the audience to be optimistic and hopeful in the course of dealing with their problems.
The book clearly depicted that life is challenging and the story expressed in the book is filled with woe and challenges. Inspite of the hardships she went through, she stood up firmly with degree of boldness as a young girl even in the bleakest of moments, thereby leaving a big lesson to the audience to boldly face challenges in any situation irrespective of their age, sex, size etc.
North Korea is a very secretive country. People rarely heard or talk about them. Yet this book was an eye – opener for me to learn about North Korea and the situations inside the border which I have never been aware of till I came across this book.
This book is filled with heartbreaking and horrific, yet inspiring all at once. It tugs at my heartstring which enables me to understand the story more precisely and emotionally. I was able to connect with this book in some aspects and accordingly it motivated me to stand firm and persevere in any disastrous moments.
This book shines a light to the readers by inspiring them in many ways.
Some of the lessons I learnt from this book are:
- Parent’s love is unconditional
- Family is power
- Never lose hope
- Take every possible way to educate yourself
- Always be grateful for what you have
- In order to live, we must have the hope to transform darkness into light
This book is utterly unputdownable, and I highly recommend this book.
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