What do you think?
Rate this book
Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia's Underground Railroad
From the world’s most repressive state comes rare good news: the escape to freedom of a small number of its people. It is a crime to leave North Korea. Yet increasing numbers of North Koreans dare to flee. They go first to neighboring China, which rejects them as criminals, then on to Southeast Asia or Mongolia, and finally to South Korea, the United States, and other free countries. They travel along a secret route known as the new underground railroad.
With a journalist’s grasp of events and a novelist’s ear for narrative, Melanie Kirkpatrick tells the story of the North Koreans’ quest for liberty. Travelers on the new underground railroad include women bound to Chinese men who purchased them as brides, defectors carrying state secrets, and POWs from the Korean War held captive in the North for more than half a century. Their conductors are brokers who are in it for the money as well as Christians who are in it to serve God. The Christians see their mission as the liberation of North Korea one person at a time.
Just as escaped slaves from the American South educated Americans about the evils of slavery, the North Korean fugitives are informing the world about the secretive country they fled. Escape from North Korea describes how they also are sowing the seeds for change within North Korea itself. Once they reach sanctuary, the escapees channel news back to those they left behind. In doing so, they are helping to open their information-starved homeland, exposing their countrymen to liberal ideas, and laying the intellectual groundwork for the transformation of the totalitarian regime that keeps their fellow citizens in chains.
With a journalist’s grasp of events and a novelist’s ear for narrative, Melanie Kirkpatrick tells the story of the North Koreans’ quest for liberty. Travelers on the new underground railroad include women bound to Chinese men who purchased them as brides, defectors carrying state secrets, and POWs from the Korean War held captive in the North for more than half a century. Their conductors are brokers who are in it for the money as well as Christians who are in it to serve God. The Christians see their mission as the liberation of North Korea one person at a time.
Just as escaped slaves from the American South educated Americans about the evils of slavery, the North Korean fugitives are informing the world about the secretive country they fled. Escape from North Korea describes how they also are sowing the seeds for change within North Korea itself. Once they reach sanctuary, the escapees channel news back to those they left behind. In doing so, they are helping to open their information-starved homeland, exposing their countrymen to liberal ideas, and laying the intellectual groundwork for the transformation of the totalitarian regime that keeps their fellow citizens in chains.
376 pages, Hardcover
First published September 18, 2012
67 people are currently reading
1413 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
November 3, 2012
This book has a lot of new and interesting information for those following the North Korean human rights crisis, but unfortunately, it's diminished by the author's overreaching glorification of religion and its role in the humanitarian crisis. Those helping refugees are always referred to as "Christians" rather than "aid workers," etc., and the book goes into some unnecessary digressions about some workers' religious history. The fact that the author is pushing an agenda is distracting and takes away from the compelling information presented. Worth a read, though, and I think the comparison to the pre-Civil-War underground railroad is clever and appropriate.
November 11, 2012
Of all the books I have read on North Korea, this was by far the worst. If you read only one book on North Korea, DO NOT read this one.
The idea of writing about N. Korean refugees is nothing new, what this book could have added was a detailed examination of the method and means of escape and those who help facilitate escape and transfer of refugees from North Korea/China to third countries and then onward to South Korea or elsewhere.
Unfortunately the book spends an inordinate amount of time talking about various religious and "Christian" aspects of the "new underground railroad". I cannot help but wonder if the author was motivated to write such a book based on a christian/religious ideology.
The idea of writing about N. Korean refugees is nothing new, what this book could have added was a detailed examination of the method and means of escape and those who help facilitate escape and transfer of refugees from North Korea/China to third countries and then onward to South Korea or elsewhere.
Unfortunately the book spends an inordinate amount of time talking about various religious and "Christian" aspects of the "new underground railroad". I cannot help but wonder if the author was motivated to write such a book based on a christian/religious ideology.
September 21, 2012
This book is written with the skill and heart of a story-teller and equally so with the scholar's unshakable regard for facts. A former Wall Street Journal deputy editor who has spent years living in Asia, Kirkpatrick develops solid arguments for ways to change a country that is frozen in time. Because of her credentials and the story she tells so well, her ideas are certain to command the attention of policy makers. But beyond Washington and New York, many readers may be moved to act once they've read the harrowing narratives, the descriptions of ordinary souls bravely helping others, once they've read Kirkpatrick's careful portrait of a grotesque and unimaginably cruel regime.
April 17, 2015
Do not waste your time with this poorly written book. It centers on the stories of men and women who take on enormous risk to help North Korean citizens escape illegally to China and then to South Korea where they receive full citizenship, passports, and classes and funds to help them integrate into regular society. Ok, that is all fine and good. However, Kirkpatrick focuses ONLY on the work of Christian missionaries and seems confident that they are the only people who care about DPRK refugees, and she talks at length about how many refugees convert to Christianity...which just smacks me wrong. Are you missionaries trying to help people escape the world's most dangerous despot? Or are you trying to increase your ranks by indoctrinating men, women, and children who have been indoctrinated their entire life and in many cases are unable to make basic choices or follow elementary logic due to a lack of ever been taught or allowed to think for themselves? Kirkpatrick's views on North Korean women who are sold as brides to Chinese men is appalling, and she calls the children from these marriages half-and-half children, like they are some kind of dairy product. She ALWAYS calls them half-and-half....and it just....no. That's not okay. They are Korean-Chinese or Chinese-Korean, not half-and-half. Kirkpatrick's theme for the book is comparing these Christian missionaries to the men and women in the United States who helped black slaves escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad. She includes quotes from American "conductors" and "passangers" of the 1850's at the beginning of every chapter. But Kirkpatrick never makes the jump that the North Korean citizens are actually treated in many ways the same as American slaves, they are in effect enslaved by their own country, with the Party and the Kim dynasty playing the role of Master. The lack of education, the labor and prison camps, the lack of nutrition and basic services and human rights all line up with slavery, but Kirkpatrick never makes that jump. In fact, very little of her writing has anything to do with the North Korean refugees themselves, but only on the stories of their rescuers. Which is important, I'm not trying to discount the risky work these men and women undertake, but it feels flat and one-sided when you don't include detailed stories about the people who ALSO are undertaking enormous risk to leave North Korea. If they are caught and sent back they will be put in a work camp or gulag which rival the concentration camps in Europe in terms of conditions, quality of life, and mortality rate.
Read "Nothing to Envy" or "Escape from Camp 14" instead. This one is not worth your time.
Read "Nothing to Envy" or "Escape from Camp 14" instead. This one is not worth your time.
February 11, 2013
I was expecting a hard hitting overview of North Korean policy, escapees stories of their lives in North Korea and what it takes for then to adapt to life in other parts of the world. Sadly, all this book is is a really strange but of religious propaganda with bits about North Korea mixed in. I'm going to try to return it today. I have never returned a booked. DO NOT BOTHER WITH THIS BOOK AT ALL! And if you do please don't pay any money for it!!! Just awful.
September 2, 2025
Watch my review on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdmPN...
December 17, 2013
Escape from North Korea is the most intriguing non-fiction book I’ve read in recent months. Kirkpatrick offers a glimpse into the operations of a modern-day underground railroad, one thats stories—sadly—are often no less chilling than those associated with its US Civil War namesake from 150 years ago.
The 17 chapters of this book are arranged into six parts. The organizational logic of the book takes the reader from the germ of an idea to flee all the way to settling into life in a free country, with all the trials and tribulations that are experienced in between. It begins as a story of one person who decides to escape, and who must virtually always get across the border into China on his or her own. Once across the border, there is help to be had if the refugee can find it before he or she gets caught by the Chinese and repatriated or is exploited by nefarious individuals. Danger is ever-present, occasionally even once the individual gets to South Korea.
Chapters 3 through 7 were particularly interesting because they looked at various classes of escapee, some of which one might not realize existed. It starts with the classic defectors, similar to those one might associate with the USSR—political, military, sporting, and artistic figures. This was the main class of refugee until people began starving in the 1990’s due to nation-wide famine.
Next is a chapter on brides for sale. Many North Korean women end up forced into slave marriages. China has a dearth of eligible women due a bias against female children, particularly combined with its one-child policy. Some women are lured across the border under false pretenses, but others, finding themselves fugitives in China, end up being exploited due to their vulnerability. Each bride fetches about $1,200 to $1,500 ($500 to $800 from the wholesaler to the retailer.) There’s also a chapter devoted to the children of such marriages, and particularly the cases in which the mother is repatriated and the child ends up orphaned because children born in China will not be taken by the North Koreans and frequently the fathers want nothing to do with the children. Pregnant women repatriated to North Korea are often forced to abort pregnancies involving Chinese fathers.
One of the most intriguing chapters was on the North Korean lumberjacks residing in Siberia. This profit-sharing deal goes back to the Soviet days. When the Soviet Union imploded, however, the arrangement was kept with some worker rights installed on paper to appease Russia’s newly developed human rights watchdogs. One might wonder how the Kims—fearful of dissidents as they are—would let a group live outside the country on a remote site that’s hard to guard. The answer is that all the lumberjacks had to have both wives and children at home to serve as hostages. Still, some decide to make the break.
There is also a chapter about the Prisoners of War from the Korean War who were trapped on the wrong side of the border.
I’m fairly well-read on the subject of North Korea, but, like most Americans, the bulk of this has to do with Pyongyang’s nuclear program. I, therefore, found some of the stories of the regime’s depravity to be beyond the pale. A sampling of such stories includes:
-guards severely beating a prisoner and then having other prisoners bury the victim alive
-the warden in a state-run orphanage having orphans fight each other for bigger food servings
-a family that killed themselves rather than be repatriated to North Korea
-individuals, such as Ri Hyok-ok, who were executed for distributing bibles
-North Korea’s provision of family information on trans-border family members as a profit-making scheme
-Kim Jong Il pulling a Pol Pot and shutting down the universities and colleges and sending students to work on farms and in factories for months in 2011 because he was afraid that the Arab Spring might be infectious
-Kidnapping foreigners on foreign soil, which North Korea has even admitted to openly.
Sadly, the woeful tales aren’t limited to the North Koreans. Kirkpatrick devotes a considerable amount of space to chastising the Chinese for repatriating North Koreans. Under international law, which China ratified, refugees shouldn’t be sent back to their country of origin if it’s likely they will be punished. China claims that individuals are economic migrants and not political refugees, and it compares them to Mexicans crossing onto American soil—without addressing the fact that Mexicans are not sentenced to hard labor or killed when they are returned to Mexico. The Chinese might also point to Hwang Jang-yop, the author of the North Korean Juche (self-reliance) policy, as an example of a “true” political refugee that they didn’t repatriate, but allowed to migrate to South Korea (where the North Koreans tried to assassinate him in Seoul several times.)
There’s even some disappointing behavior on the side of the US. In 2006, a US consulate employee in China not only turned away several North Korea refugees, but--by speaking openly over an unsecured line--got a conductor on the Underground Railroad arrested.
The end of the book contains an interesting description of how the Kims are beginning to lose the war on keeping the information age out of North Korea. From balloon drops to radio broadcasts, North Koreans are beginning to get true information about both the outside world and their own leadership. Lest one think that no one could possibly believe the propaganda out of Pyongyang, even in the absence of information inflows, there’s a story about an immigrant to America who had a hard time coaxing his family out because they believed that America was out to kill North Koreans. This father’s story of the good life in sunny Florida didn’t entirely convince them, and ultimately they had to be coaxed to their new home in stages. It’s telling that the cellphone was only introduced in North Korea in 2008. While cellphones aren’t that useful for the railroad because they can’t call outside the country, they do allow for some spread of information inside.
One might think that once a North Korean gets to freedom, everything is hunky-dory, but Kirkpatrick discusses the problems that most North Koreans have adjusting to life in South Korea. As workers, North Koreans tend to lack initiative. They just want to be told what to do, and will do no more. It’s not that they’re inherently lazy; they come from a world in which initiative is not rewarded but is often punished.
While it may be hard to believe, most of the emigrants have trouble coping with the massive amount of choice available in their new homelands. Having an entire aisle of the market devoted to laundry detergent overwhelms them. Apparently, a few—very few—have even snuck themselves back into North Korea where all they have to do is do what they’re told, eat what they can, and maybe starve to death.
I think this is an important book that should be read by anyone interested in world affairs. North Korea is truly unique in the world. One telling line from the book was, “Even during the Communist era, Russia was more liberal and prosperous than North Korea.” The continuance of the Kim Dynasty is an unstable proposition, and it’s impossible to know when it will fall and what damage will be done internationally when it does.
The 17 chapters of this book are arranged into six parts. The organizational logic of the book takes the reader from the germ of an idea to flee all the way to settling into life in a free country, with all the trials and tribulations that are experienced in between. It begins as a story of one person who decides to escape, and who must virtually always get across the border into China on his or her own. Once across the border, there is help to be had if the refugee can find it before he or she gets caught by the Chinese and repatriated or is exploited by nefarious individuals. Danger is ever-present, occasionally even once the individual gets to South Korea.
Chapters 3 through 7 were particularly interesting because they looked at various classes of escapee, some of which one might not realize existed. It starts with the classic defectors, similar to those one might associate with the USSR—political, military, sporting, and artistic figures. This was the main class of refugee until people began starving in the 1990’s due to nation-wide famine.
Next is a chapter on brides for sale. Many North Korean women end up forced into slave marriages. China has a dearth of eligible women due a bias against female children, particularly combined with its one-child policy. Some women are lured across the border under false pretenses, but others, finding themselves fugitives in China, end up being exploited due to their vulnerability. Each bride fetches about $1,200 to $1,500 ($500 to $800 from the wholesaler to the retailer.) There’s also a chapter devoted to the children of such marriages, and particularly the cases in which the mother is repatriated and the child ends up orphaned because children born in China will not be taken by the North Koreans and frequently the fathers want nothing to do with the children. Pregnant women repatriated to North Korea are often forced to abort pregnancies involving Chinese fathers.
One of the most intriguing chapters was on the North Korean lumberjacks residing in Siberia. This profit-sharing deal goes back to the Soviet days. When the Soviet Union imploded, however, the arrangement was kept with some worker rights installed on paper to appease Russia’s newly developed human rights watchdogs. One might wonder how the Kims—fearful of dissidents as they are—would let a group live outside the country on a remote site that’s hard to guard. The answer is that all the lumberjacks had to have both wives and children at home to serve as hostages. Still, some decide to make the break.
There is also a chapter about the Prisoners of War from the Korean War who were trapped on the wrong side of the border.
I’m fairly well-read on the subject of North Korea, but, like most Americans, the bulk of this has to do with Pyongyang’s nuclear program. I, therefore, found some of the stories of the regime’s depravity to be beyond the pale. A sampling of such stories includes:
-guards severely beating a prisoner and then having other prisoners bury the victim alive
-the warden in a state-run orphanage having orphans fight each other for bigger food servings
-a family that killed themselves rather than be repatriated to North Korea
-individuals, such as Ri Hyok-ok, who were executed for distributing bibles
-North Korea’s provision of family information on trans-border family members as a profit-making scheme
-Kim Jong Il pulling a Pol Pot and shutting down the universities and colleges and sending students to work on farms and in factories for months in 2011 because he was afraid that the Arab Spring might be infectious
-Kidnapping foreigners on foreign soil, which North Korea has even admitted to openly.
Sadly, the woeful tales aren’t limited to the North Koreans. Kirkpatrick devotes a considerable amount of space to chastising the Chinese for repatriating North Koreans. Under international law, which China ratified, refugees shouldn’t be sent back to their country of origin if it’s likely they will be punished. China claims that individuals are economic migrants and not political refugees, and it compares them to Mexicans crossing onto American soil—without addressing the fact that Mexicans are not sentenced to hard labor or killed when they are returned to Mexico. The Chinese might also point to Hwang Jang-yop, the author of the North Korean Juche (self-reliance) policy, as an example of a “true” political refugee that they didn’t repatriate, but allowed to migrate to South Korea (where the North Koreans tried to assassinate him in Seoul several times.)
There’s even some disappointing behavior on the side of the US. In 2006, a US consulate employee in China not only turned away several North Korea refugees, but--by speaking openly over an unsecured line--got a conductor on the Underground Railroad arrested.
The end of the book contains an interesting description of how the Kims are beginning to lose the war on keeping the information age out of North Korea. From balloon drops to radio broadcasts, North Koreans are beginning to get true information about both the outside world and their own leadership. Lest one think that no one could possibly believe the propaganda out of Pyongyang, even in the absence of information inflows, there’s a story about an immigrant to America who had a hard time coaxing his family out because they believed that America was out to kill North Koreans. This father’s story of the good life in sunny Florida didn’t entirely convince them, and ultimately they had to be coaxed to their new home in stages. It’s telling that the cellphone was only introduced in North Korea in 2008. While cellphones aren’t that useful for the railroad because they can’t call outside the country, they do allow for some spread of information inside.
One might think that once a North Korean gets to freedom, everything is hunky-dory, but Kirkpatrick discusses the problems that most North Koreans have adjusting to life in South Korea. As workers, North Koreans tend to lack initiative. They just want to be told what to do, and will do no more. It’s not that they’re inherently lazy; they come from a world in which initiative is not rewarded but is often punished.
While it may be hard to believe, most of the emigrants have trouble coping with the massive amount of choice available in their new homelands. Having an entire aisle of the market devoted to laundry detergent overwhelms them. Apparently, a few—very few—have even snuck themselves back into North Korea where all they have to do is do what they’re told, eat what they can, and maybe starve to death.
I think this is an important book that should be read by anyone interested in world affairs. North Korea is truly unique in the world. One telling line from the book was, “Even during the Communist era, Russia was more liberal and prosperous than North Korea.” The continuance of the Kim Dynasty is an unstable proposition, and it’s impossible to know when it will fall and what damage will be done internationally when it does.
March 2, 2018
This is a more general book about the method North Koreans use to escape to China, a nd then often to a second country before reaching South Korea. The author tells many different survivor stories, and gives an overview of the various aid groups and NGOs working to get poeple out of North Korea and help them resettle elsewhere. The author spends a lot of time discussing Christian missionaries, who do rescue and aid North Koreans, but also do a lot of prosletyizing, which is uncomfortable reading to someone like me who is not Christian or thinks that the whole idea of missionizing to a distressed population is something that should have been left behind centuries ago. The book is also more hopeful for the future than I would be, especially because since it was written, Kim Jung-Un has worked with China to crack down hard on escapees.
June 18, 2013
This book taught me so much about not just North Korea but the entire Korean Peninsula and the surrounding area. Prior to reading this book, I tended to avoid news about North Korea and it's nuclear program because the thought of nuclear war is nothing but depressing. Now I see beyond North Korea's fanatical family dictatorship to it's people and their serious oppression under the Kim Jong Un rule and being entire cut off from the modern world (and potential family members in South Korea) since the end of the Korean War. I'm very happy that there are those who are making efforts to get people out of North Korea as it sounds reform from within is nearly impossible under the oppressive regime. The book also causes me to be much more skeptical of efforts by Kim Jong Un to engage in talks with other world leaders.
October 19, 2018
The author tried to describe the sufferings of North Koreans. But she bloated the book with some unnecessary descriptions. Plus poor writing style.
Anyway, for above those I'll give this book 3. Another star to encourage people to read this book only to learn about North Koreans sufferings. Total 4 star.
Anyway, for above those I'll give this book 3. Another star to encourage people to read this book only to learn about North Koreans sufferings. Total 4 star.
October 3, 2013
I was worried this book would be too gut-wrenching for me to handle. Fortunately, Kirkpatrick writes as a reporter and while there are many gruesome things mentioned (torture, being separated from family, death, concentration camps), none of it is recounted in such a way as to reduce me to a sobbing mess. She still raises compassion and concern for the North Korean people and points out what is being done and what is still undone in helping them.
Kirkpatrick does an excellent job of introducing her readers to a wide range of issues around North Korea and refugees. For just one example, there is a sex-trafficking industry started by China's huge gender imbalance and the children in China who have Chinese fathers and North Korean mothers (both forced and voluntary) rarely receive any legal status. The children often become de facto orphans and cannot be adopted because their births were never recognized in China.
After discussing numerous problems and issues, Kirkpatrick also covers some of the work being done to help refugees and to try to change North Korea. I learned a lot about both Koreas and China and some about U.S. politics in East Asia. And I have a lot more issues to pray about now.
Kirkpatrick does an excellent job of introducing her readers to a wide range of issues around North Korea and refugees. For just one example, there is a sex-trafficking industry started by China's huge gender imbalance and the children in China who have Chinese fathers and North Korean mothers (both forced and voluntary) rarely receive any legal status. The children often become de facto orphans and cannot be adopted because their births were never recognized in China.
After discussing numerous problems and issues, Kirkpatrick also covers some of the work being done to help refugees and to try to change North Korea. I learned a lot about both Koreas and China and some about U.S. politics in East Asia. And I have a lot more issues to pray about now.
August 17, 2016
Writing about North Korea has become a popular subject. This weekend I picked up Melanie Kirkpatrick's Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia's Underground Railroad (New York: Encounter Books, 2012). Using the underground railroad of the 19th-century as an example and a map Kirkpatrick shows how North Korean's have escaped from North Korea through China to either South Korea or North America. The underground railroad like the 19th-century example is built primarily by Christian organizations and missionaries who operate clandestinely. Kirkpatrick interviews both refugees and those who help them to build her understanding of how the railroad works. Because Kirkpatrick focuses on the challenges to those trying to escape there is little understanding how the state itself works. Rather, this is a study of based on the narratives of refugees and those who help them, making the work celebratory in tone.
January 30, 2015
This is an incredibly well-researched, well-written, informative look at the plight of modern North Korean citizens, and their current passageways to freedom. It is one of the most harrowing modern human rights issues of today, but is hardly known. Kirkpatrick explores what is going on inside North Korea, what various refugees do to escape, and how different groups and individuals are working to get those refugees to freedom despite numerous difficulties.
A must read for anyone interested in justice, freedom, international relations, and humans rights issues.
Notes on content: No swearing. Kirkpatrick does talk about the sex trafficking of North Korean women, but does not go into any kind of details. There are numerous torture methods mentioned as penalties for North Koreans who are caught defying the Kim regime.
A must read for anyone interested in justice, freedom, international relations, and humans rights issues.
Notes on content: No swearing. Kirkpatrick does talk about the sex trafficking of North Korean women, but does not go into any kind of details. There are numerous torture methods mentioned as penalties for North Koreans who are caught defying the Kim regime.
February 18, 2014
This book give a decent history of North Korean refugees and tells many heart-wrenching stories of those fleeing the country. It opened my eyes to many of the problems people have in knowing how to leave, what to do when they decide to leave, the dangers, the political problems, the problems adapting, etc. However, the book would have you believe that the only people who help North Koreans are Christians. While I believe that a lot of Christians in China and South Korea do help people, the book pushed the issue so far it seemed like Christian propaganda instead of stories of North Korean refugees. I consider myself a Christian, I believe in God, but the book was heavy handed on the whole concept of North Koreans being completely lost unless they found Christians.
December 24, 2014
If you're looking for one book to read to give you a good intro to North Korea, this is not the one you should pick. Go for Nothing to Envy, Escape from Camp 14, or Aquariums of Pyongyang instead. This book is okay if you are already familiar with the atrocities going on in North Korea and want to know a little bit more about how refugees escape. Escape from North Korea wasn't as powerful as some of the other books that I have read (and mentioned previously) on the subject, but did give me more insight on the lives of North Korean refugees as they adjust to life in their new countries. While Christians undoubtedly help North Koreans escape, I would have like to known more about other non-religious groups that aid and hide refugees on the "railroad".
August 5, 2019
I enjoyed hearing more of the different types of refugees and the conditions of those returned after trying to escape. It bogged down for me once she got to discussing the role of Christians, those who have converted and the push to try to get more Koreans to return to proselyte.
This is more of a stating the problem, giving an example, explaining the reasons behind it but not an exciting escape story. It's pretty low on details of the escapes themselves which may be to protect some helpers and the variety between stories, excluding some selected peoples' stories.
I am glad to have read about the abuses and be more aware of the problem but this isn't an exhilarating read.
This is more of a stating the problem, giving an example, explaining the reasons behind it but not an exciting escape story. It's pretty low on details of the escapes themselves which may be to protect some helpers and the variety between stories, excluding some selected peoples' stories.
I am glad to have read about the abuses and be more aware of the problem but this isn't an exhilarating read.
July 12, 2016
Opened my eyes to the incredible oppression happening to the North Korean people. Horrible.
Inspiring and moving to hear of the many stories of Christians and fellow North Koreans risking their lives to help these precious people out.
Very long and informative book.
Inspiring and moving to hear of the many stories of Christians and fellow North Koreans risking their lives to help these precious people out.
Very long and informative book.
July 26, 2013
I could not put this book down! My heart was moved by the stories of the suffering and courage of the people of North Korea and those who help them find freedom from the oppressive Kim regime.
April 27, 2021
(3.5 stars) This is one of many other works that looks at the mysterious nation of North Korea, with a focus on how people risk life and family to get out of the Hermit Kingdom and to life either in South Korea or America. The author is a former editor from the Wall Street Journal, so it will take on a conservative bent, with a lot of focus on the efforts of Christian charities and actions. While some might be a little put off by that focus, it does offer insight into how missionaries and volunteers risk so much to help North Koreans not only brave escape from North Korea, but from China and at times, a hostile South Korea and US.
This work was written shortly after Kim Jong Un (Eun in this work) came to power. It would be interesting to see if the author has any updates, especially as more information comes out from North Korea, and as KJU has made some efforts to try to change the international perception about refugees and their repatriation.
You learn quite a bit that you don't see in other works, and the stories are compelling enough. Again, would be curious about how things have changed in the years since this was written. Still, a good resource and decent read.
This work was written shortly after Kim Jong Un (Eun in this work) came to power. It would be interesting to see if the author has any updates, especially as more information comes out from North Korea, and as KJU has made some efforts to try to change the international perception about refugees and their repatriation.
You learn quite a bit that you don't see in other works, and the stories are compelling enough. Again, would be curious about how things have changed in the years since this was written. Still, a good resource and decent read.
March 13, 2024
Kirkpatrick does a good job following individuals and looking at the big picture of the oppression of the people from North Korea. Because they have been so cut off from the greater world--both internally and from the news cycle--many people know very little about what life is like there. It's hard to believe that people have lived that way for almost 50 years. The reason why the regime has lasted so long without more people knowing about it is because people rarely escape and live to tell about it. Her main message is that helping refugees and defectors to escape is the best way to help North Korea and to get more people to understand and listen to their stories.
November 14, 2019
I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in a repressive North Korea, and find the will to attempt escape, which is why I chose to read this book. Sadly for me, I still can’t imagine it. But I do understand a whole lot better logistics of escape; the how’s and who’s and where’s. The problems of vulnerability as a refugee, of not being free in China, or stunted and disadvantaged in South Korea. So very little personal stories, but a lot of detail about the new Underground Railroad.
April 24, 2018
dnf at 66%
This book is chalk full of facts and insight into what has become the Underground Railroad out of North Korea. It was very educational for the first half but into the second half it began to fizzle out for me. The author kept revisiting issues already touched upon previously in the book. There were many other small annoyances that led to me finally giving up on it.
This book is chalk full of facts and insight into what has become the Underground Railroad out of North Korea. It was very educational for the first half but into the second half it began to fizzle out for me. The author kept revisiting issues already touched upon previously in the book. There were many other small annoyances that led to me finally giving up on it.
October 17, 2019
Enjoyable with all of the history and graphic detail you might want.
It sets a grim tone and never lets up, but there is a hopefulness there. There is a great emphasis on the Christian involvement in Aisa's Underground Railroad, which makes me wonder if Kirkpatrick is associated with a church, but it is a small quibble in an otherwise very well written book.
It sets a grim tone and never lets up, but there is a hopefulness there. There is a great emphasis on the Christian involvement in Aisa's Underground Railroad, which makes me wonder if Kirkpatrick is associated with a church, but it is a small quibble in an otherwise very well written book.
January 16, 2026
As an American, I had virtually no knowledge of any of this other than “North Korea bad” but wow. Some of these stories are harrowing and truly horrific.
The book itself did seem, at times, to really deify the churches role. Which is possibly warranted in these cases but it felt like overkill to me
The book itself did seem, at times, to really deify the churches role. Which is possibly warranted in these cases but it felt like overkill to me
April 13, 2018
One of the best read
One of the best I have read. Well researched , well written while interesting. One thing missing is obviously what's her finding and her view subsequent to 2012 when the book ended. Shaun
One of the best I have read. Well researched , well written while interesting. One thing missing is obviously what's her finding and her view subsequent to 2012 when the book ended. Shaun
October 7, 2018
Fascinating read on the active Underground Railroad out of North Korea. Some heart wrenching stories along with some miraculous tales of escape. Interestingly, the church play a major role in this system as they are some of the only people willing to risk their lives to help others.
May 15, 2019
FINALLY! I'm finished. Took me awhile to read this. It was one of those books that you couldn't sit down in one read.
It was very informative and I learned a whole lot, things I didn't even know. This was a good book!
I would recommend this book!
It was very informative and I learned a whole lot, things I didn't even know. This was a good book!
I would recommend this book!
December 29, 2021
I am reading this book online via Hoopla which is interesting for starters. It is hard to get engrossed in but is providing a serious look at life and the people of North Korea struggling to have a life of their own choosing I'll say. Reading this book has opened many doors to the suffering (or not), demeaning lives and total seclusion but not by choice of North Korean people. Many revealing details of how difficult it is to get to freedom, the cost (financially and otherwise) and dangers. Having just finished the book I still wonder about what the first bug or idea was for some people who made plans, saved and plotted their paths towards a free life.
Read it. Melanie Kirkpatrick has provided us with well researched stories documenting how people escaped and in some cases died or were imprisoned ultimately when they tried to help others in some cases.
J.
Read it. Melanie Kirkpatrick has provided us with well researched stories documenting how people escaped and in some cases died or were imprisoned ultimately when they tried to help others in some cases.
J.
July 20, 2018
Great information. A little wordy and dry at times but I found it very worthwhile.
January 8, 2020
Loved this book so much. Very detailed and a quick read. Reads like a Fiction novel.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews