48 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not so great..., February 7, 2011
My take on this book is quite different from others. I have a mixed review of this book and the actions of the author, mainly negative ones.
I'm a South Korean-born American. And so I have a great deal of interest in anything that deals with North Korea. (NK) I followed this story closely when it unfolded. I also saw the Ling sisters give countless interviews about the events, during and after it occurred.
On the positive front: If you just look at this book on an emotional level as a tale of sisters bonding and rooting for Laura Ling to get out of the hellhole known as NK, you will love this book. It is well written and very detailed. Due to the frankness and the clear writing, you will feel yourself transported into the shoes of these sisters and feel as if you were going through these events yourself. Both sisters write well and as a result, there is a great amount of suspense and page-turning effect that makes you keep reading.
Both sisters are pretty honest. And so as a reader, you end up liking them and cheering for them. It is an emotional tale with a happy ending: when you either read about or see the video footage on the internet, seeing Laura and Euna getting off the plane and being reunited with their families will move you to tears. I mean if that doesn't get you misty eyed, there seriously is something wrong with your heart. I was so happy and joyed to see the women return and embrace their families. And the efforts of President Clinton, Vice-President Gore, President Obama, and everyone else should be commended for getting these two ladies home. They are daughters, wives, friends, loved ones, and in the case of Euna Lee, a mother. And so on a humanitarian heart level, this is a feel-good story and a survival tale.
On the negative front: Having said all this, it is important to look at these events from a world and moral perspective. In other words, use your mind, not just your heart when you read this book and assess the events. You cannot separate their experience and their actions. And so I encourage you to look at this book and the two journalists' actions on a global scale. When you do that, you will come away with a much less impressive view of these two sisters, particularly Laura Ling. And you will view the writing of this book on a much different level. Here are my observations.
1. Much of the tension in the narrative by Laura Ling is artificially created. She obviously wants sympathy from the readers. And to get it, she unnaturally tries to heighten her situation with drama and suspense. She does this with an amazing amount of detail in this book. Too amazing. The two sisters recall almost a day-by-day, sometimes an hour-by-hour account of what happened to them. They directly quote people on countless situations. This is just not believable. If you read Euna Lee's book, she rarely quotes but rather just summarizes what a person said. Plus in the front of her book, Euna Lee even says that the quoted dialogue is her best memory of what someone said and may not be accurate. Laura Ling does none of that in her book. I strongly doubt these were the actual words spoken by the various people. There is no way a person could remember that amount of details for five months short of recording constantly. In my experience if someone is being this exact about this much volume of detail, they are filling in the details and gaps of memory liberally, exaggerating the events and the atmosphere to suit their own agenda.
This kind of amplification of truth is even more apparent when describing the dialogue. Instead of writing this person "said" something, Laura Ling writes with exaggerated descriptions like, "I screamed breathlessly" or "he said gruffly." These are obvious and unnatural drama-creating devices. All of this is done to grab greater sympathy from the reader and paint themselves even more as a sympathetic victim. Many of these events of Laura are probably dramatized and not completely accurate. It made me look at her story with greater doubt.
2. The tone of both sisters has a quiet and underlying sense of arrogance about them. Lisa Ling talks many times about the amount of years she has in television and the number of contacts she has. Of course this may be factually true, but the manner in which she talks about herself and her stature put me off, as many other reviewers have commented on. Laura Ling is worse. She clearly sees herself as a survivor and victim of these events. But there is no humbleness nor any sense of responsibility of her own actions in this book. And when you see her in interviews on the internet about these events, her narcissism really comes through. This is not a grateful person at all. There is a lot of "but I want this..." type of attitude as a prisoner in NK. She is extremely preoccupied about telling what happened to herself and how hard it was on her. Yet she is oblivious to what other negative effects her actions have had on others.
I'm guessing she did some research on NK before going there for her assignment. And so she should know about the incredible food and medical shortage in that country. Most North Koreans who are not in prison do not receive the amount of food as well as medical care that she received. She took a dangerous assignment which means she should understand the amount of risk she was taking. And when the risk doesn't pan out, she should accept the logical consequences. Instead, she goes into this victimhood mode which was very unattractive. When you play with a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth mad dog, you can and will get bitten. She acknowledges so little of her circumstance to her own actions. She blames the events virtually all on her guide who took them into NK. NK is a murderous, paranoid, child-like regime who are always looking for a reason to be offended. Why would you risk going across the river like that into NK, especially when she has all that video footage, contact information about people who work to help NK refugees?
There is also no sympathy by Laura Ling in looking beyond her own pain. I cannot imagine their level of shock when she was imprisoned. But what about realizing that she and Euna Lee are not the only ones imprisoned? There is an estimated 150,000-200,000 prisoners in North Korea, most if not all of them unjustly imprisoned.
[...]
She must know this. And she must know about the amount of physical labor, torture, malnutrition, starvation, beatings, unsanitary conditions, lack of medical care, brainwashing, and forced abortions that goes on regularly and systematically in NK prisons. Yet she received lavish meals compared to NK standards, a clean room, allowed to exercise, and received whatever medical treatment was available. I never read Laura Ling once reflect or sympathize about the other NK prisoners in worse situation than her.
The following article shows that Pastor Chun told them repeatedly not to stray into NK territory.
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And that the journalists should know about the danger of even being near the border in the various examples in this article.
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As this article discusses, they took an unnecessary risk. They may say that they were trying to shed light on the plight of NK refugees. That's a nice motive. But their actions were still reckless and not even necessary as this article shows.
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They could have competently reported on NK escapees without crossing the Tumin river. They had various footages from interviews with defectors, they had footages from the area, town, woods, and river that the refugees would go through. They did not need to cross the river and into NK territory. They could have shot the same footage standing from the China side without crossing the river.
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3. Laura Ling's actions also placed the refugees and the South Korean people who help them at risk. For those brave and blessed folks who want to escape NK and risk so much, they are now worse off because of Laura Ling's actions. Since the journalists were captured in an area where many people escape into a town in China, NK officials are now more aware of the refugee movement and have a greater insight in how to prevent refugees escaping. There is a silent war going on between NK officials and NK citizens who want to escape as well as those who risk so much to help them. Their actions made it harder for NK people to escape and to help those who want to escape.
4. Laura Ling gave too much details regarding her NK captors and guards. NK is a dictatorship built on fear and loyalty to the state/demi-god Kim Jong Il. Like the old Stalinist Soviet Union, kids are encouraged to spy on their parents and to be on the lookout for any disloyalty to the state. This means any signs of disloyalty, failure of job duties, or sympathy to prisoners can be grounds for you or your whole family to be imprisoned or killed without any legal process.
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Knowingly or not, Laura Ling recounts in great detail, the "kindness" many of the female guards and captors showed her. Many of the female guards asked and talked to Laura Ling about what its like in America, learned Ling's yoga moves, talked about Ling's family and husband, laughed and cried with Ling, showed sympathy, slept and goofed off rather than guard Ling, and even was sad when Ling was freed. This can and will get these female guards into trouble for dereliction of duty and being kind to an enemy criminal once the NK officials read this in Laura Ling's book.
Ling also writes about how one of her main captors, Mr. Baek, was the one who suggested that the American envoy should be President Carter rather than President Clinton. This...
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