Fascinating. I was so sucked into this book and Shin Dong-hyuk's story of the camps. I've not read much on North Korea yet and everything I've read has been centered on citizens. What made this interesting and so very different was the way Shin was treated because he was not a citizen. He was a slave, only good for labor until his death, so there was no point in wasting effort or time brainwashing. He never learned about their Dear Leader, or thinking only in the plural. It just wasn't part of his life the way it was for every other North Korean citizen. In many ways his experiences are similar, but it's such a wildly different perspective too.

I struggled with the ending a bit. I don't think that's entirely Harden's fault, it's just a thing that happens with nonfiction. There's not always closure. It's got to just stop without some satisfying wrap up because Shin's life is still going on. He hasn't healed completely or made great revelations. He's still struggling and living his life, and will probably continue doing just that for a great many years. I think Harden still could have done a better job with the book feeling like it just stopped with no ending at all, but it is just a drawback of nonfiction.

There were also some questions of Shin's truthfulness, but that didn't bother me too much. Any memoir you kind of have to take with a grain of salt because they're someone's personal stories and thoughts, and will always be subjective. And especially in a book like this where Shin's life is so full of trauma and horror. I doubt anyone could be completely straight forward. Lying or subverting the truth is a survival mechanism. And you can't verify anything Shin says since there are no documents or witnesses. It's literally all his word. I came away thinking that while some details may be off, the broad strokes all seemed generally true and that's good enough for me in this case.

I highly recommend picking this up if you're interested in North Korea. It wasn't the best I've read, but I think it's such an important perspective because we don't hear much about the inside of the camps, especially from someone who was raised there from birth. It's important and so very fascinating, and hopefully if more people read stories like this, more will be done in the world so we have fewer stories like this in the future.