Yongju is an accomplished student from one of North Korea's most prominent families. Jangmi has had to fend for herself since childhood, most recently by smuggling goods across the border. Danny is a Chinese American teenager of North Korean descent whose quirks and precocious intelligence have long marked him as an outcast in his California high school.

These three disparate lives converge when each of them travels to the region where China borders North Korea - Danny, to visit his mother, who is working as a missionary there, after a humiliating incident keeps him out of school; Yongju, to escape persecution after his father is killed at the hands of the Dear Leader himself; and Jangmi, to protect her unborn child.

As they struggle to survive in a place where danger seems to close in on all sides, they come to form a kind of adopted family. But will Yongju, Jangmi, and Danny find their way to the better lives they risked everything for?

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Listening Length	6 hours and 30 minutes
Author	Krys Lee
Narrator	Janet Song, Ewan Chung, Raymond Lee
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	July 09, 2018
Publisher	Dreamscape Media, LLC
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07F9YY81D
Best Sellers Rank	#297,413 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #284 in Asian American Literature (Audible Books & Originals) #974 in Political Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #2,149 in Asian American Literature & Fiction

Customer reviews

5 star		51%
4 star		20%
3 star		7%
2 star		14%
1 star		8%

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Top reviews from the United States

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LongT

Engrossing look into a world that few Westerners see, ...

Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2016

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Engrossing look into a world that few Westerners see, that of the plight of North Korean refugees in northeast China. At times tough to read, it is a tale of exploitation, suffering, and survival in a harsh world through the eyes of three young and fascinating characters. Ms. Lee is passionate about the subject matter and it shows in her sparse, but poetic and crystal clear writing. If you are interested in the affairs of the Korean peninsula, you will find this book well worth your time.

3 people found this helpful

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Ned C. Holt

Good novel about the desperate lives of refugees

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2018

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A well thought out concept and story. Really gets into the seamier and frightening aspects of being a refugee from Nort Korea in China. It could have used a glossary for the Korean language words. I know a good of Korean, but the North Korean terms are s challenge. Still, I’d highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the lives and fates of North Koreans in China.

One person found this helpful

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Elizabeth

... explains the scary situation of the North Korean defectors better than a dozen scholarly works could do

Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2016

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This work explains the scary situation of the North Korean defectors better than a dozen scholarly works could do. Krys Lee knows the true stories of many defectors and has told a gripping tale. No country comes out looking good--not North Korea, not China and not South Korea. Anyone interested in the North Korean defectors or in defectors generally should read this novel.

2 people found this helpful

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NEEL SAPRE

Worth a read but nothing for Korea watchers

Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2018

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Nothing special. Story wasn't very believable. Author tried too hard to infuse elements of social dynamics in the Dprk along with a lord of the flies like survival story.
Bitter truth is that all the non fiction books written about North Korea seem totally made up. Any real fiction work will find it hard to live up to those.

One person found this helpful

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Timothy D Browne, MD

Hard to put down!

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2017

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How I Became a North Korean is a beautifully written story. It is haunting, sad and powerful and a must read to understand the plight of those desperately escaping North Korea. Ms. Lee writes eloquently and has wonderfully developed characters. I felt as though I was sitting within her story. Well Done!!

One person found this helpful

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Ann Merrill

and beautifully described, Lee has written an abitious and emotionally ...

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2016

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In this debut novel, Kry Lee captures three complicated characters with deep thoughtfulness. Each one is fully developed, and the path they share out of despair into hope is full of surprises. Odd, eerie, and beautifully described, Lee has written an abitious and emotionally rich story.

2 people found this helpful

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Dr. Renauld

Two Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2018

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Boring; uneventful.

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2018

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great book

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Top reviews from other countries

Ralph Blumenau

From the frying pan into the fire

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 21, 2016

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This is a story, told in alternating autobiographical chapters, by three young Koreans who in 2009 found themselves in China:

Yong Ju is the son of a father who was part of the North Korean establishment until Kim Jong-il took against him and shot him dead during a dinner. Yong Ju, then 21, his mother and sister were then able, with the help of a friend, to escape across the Tumen River into China, only to find gangsters on the Chinese side abducting the mother and the sister, leaving Yong Ju to find shelter in a cave in the mountains.

Jangmi has become pregnant and, in desperation, had arranged via broker to marry an old crippled Chinese man and had bribed the border guards to let her cross the river. When the husband and his mother find out that she is pregnant, she is driven out of the house and eventually also finds shelter in the cave.

Daehan (Danny) and his parents had emigrated from a Korean area in China to the United States. They are a Christian family, and his mother had gone back to China to become a missionary. Danny, aged sixteen, is such an unhappy misfit at school that his father arranged for him to rejoin the mother in China. When he gets there, he finds that his mother is having an affaire with a Chinese deacon, and he is so horrified that he runs away, and, after horrific adventures, also ends up in the cave.

Danny thinks the Church will look after them, and he and Yong Ju, together with several other young North Korean refuges, do find accommodation in a safe house run by a Chinese missionary, Mr Kwon. Jangmi had run away from the cave and had some terrible experiences before she, too, is rescued by Mr Kwong, so the three are reunited. Mr Kwon had said that he could get them from the safe house to South Korea – but will not let them go, ostensibly until they have mastered the whole of the Bible, but actually he has ulterior motives.

It is not surprising that people try to flee from the oppressive regime in North Korea (there are several references to the terrible famine between 1994 and 1998); but the novel shows all the dangers to which North Koreans are exposed in China. If found, they may be sent back to North Korea. Most Chinese dislike the Koreans intensely, refuse to help the refugees. Thugs and gangsters will rob them, exploit and mistreat them, or sell them into prostitution. Even the safe house is in effect a prison run by a hypocritical tyrant. The bleakness and horror of their lives pervades most of the book.

The short last section, set six years later, is called “Freedom”, so I am not giving a spoiler when I say that they eventually escape and get out of China.

Apart from being a painful read, it is not an easy one: there are many untranslated Korean words, the meaning of only some of which one can guess; in places the triple narrative is quite confusing and there seem to be some gaps in their collective story. The title seems odd to me also: the characters were North Korean already; one of them had become an American, the other two became South Koreans.

4 people found this helpful

dazey

great and poetic an unsentimental

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2016

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This is a fantastically well written book, with clear story lines and almost immediately an atmosphere that permeates the whole journey. But who would want to be a North Korean refugee? It's a whole world of suffering I didn't know about.

pari savvidi

all great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2020

Verified Purchase

great at anything

Silkdream

Too much fiction

Reviewed in Germany on June 19, 2020

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The reality, even from different points of view, is not reflected. Just too much fiction with a title, that tries to attract readers. However, to analyse such intentions, you can use the book.

Amod Sinha

Over all it is good.

Reviewed in India on April 4, 2018

Verified Purchase

The book has tough language; and it takes time to start understanding the authors views. Over all it is good.

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How I Became a North Korean: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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