Book Review Club - December 2018

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@Barrie Summy

This month I will be reviewing THE GIRL WITH SEVEN NAMES.  Our host, Barrie, reviewed it in February and I requested an eBook loan from my library.  The hold list was such that I had to wait more than four months for the book to become available.

The book is about Hyeonseo Lee's life and journey from North Korea to South Korea.  Her journey started more as teenage rebellion rather than an intention to defect.  China was literally across the river from her house.  A friend wanted to cross the river to prove she could but Lee's mother told her no when she asked permission to join her friend.  This frustrated Lee because she knew her brother had crossed the river several times.  Then one day she decided to just do it.  She decided to go visit family members in Shenyang for a couple of days and told her brother to let her mother know after she had left.

Shenyang and China were so different from her home in North Korea and she was enjoying seeing all the sights and getting to know her relatives so she didn't immediately return as planned.  She received a shock when her mother called a month later and said they were in danger and she couldn't come back.  Shortly after she had left a census was being done for an upcoming election and since she was of legal age to vote her absence was noticed so her mother had to report her as missing.  If she had returned it would look suspicious and she and her family would likely be subjected to punishment that could include public execution.  So she stayed away.

She stayed with her aunt and uncle for about two years before they coordinated an arranged marriage for her.  Not wanting to marry the man she'd been promised to, she ran away and lived on her own for the first time.  Knowing that if she was discovered she would be deported back to North Korea she felt she couldn't trust anyone.

Eleven years after she first crossed the river she was finally legally in South Korea and had convinced her mother to join her.  Arrangements had been made for her brother to get her mother across the river in China where Hyeonseo would meet them.  Her brother was not planning to defect with them as he was planning a wedding to a North Korean woman whom he deeply loved but things did not go as planned when they crossed the river and if he returned to North Korea he would've been subjected to punishment which could include public execution.  As a result he had to defect as well.

One of the things about their transitioning into their new lives that stuck with me is as bad as things were in North Korea, none of them had ever intended to leave.  It made me think of a child that has the alcoholic, drug using, abusive parent who gets put into the foster care system and is placed in a healthy environment for the first time but the desire to return to this abusive parent stays with them because that's all the know - they don't understand people being kind to them and treating them well because it's not their known experience.  According to Lee's telling, free thought was not only discouraged but not allowed.  She mentioned that her parents never discussed their feelings about things in front of her for fear she'd repeat them in public and get them all in trouble with the government.  It's hard to believe such controlling leadership exists in this day and age and makes you appreciate the freedoms we currently have.

This is one of those books that makes you stop and think about things.  It's also a compelling and interesting read.  I would highly recommend it.

For more reviews click on the icon at the top of this post or go to barriesummy.blogspot.com.