My bias is that I do not like books where it feels that you are chasing the plot line. This book slowly unfolds with the promise of juicy details and a hope that it all neatly starts to fall in place. I am not that patient. The book took a while to get boiling and by the time it did, it felt like work getting to the point.

I consider this book to be the best of 2012! It is that good. Interesting, intriguing, this book grabs you and holds on to you until the last page. I cannot recommend this book enough!

I knew nothing about North Korea. Well, I knew about the recent "Interview" debacle- so reading about the Korean film industry at the same time as the debacle was fun. The book has a great pace, good details and great mixing of historical interviews with storytelling.

I enjoyed the book because the details about the "Hermit Kingdom" were fascinating, horrifying and at times bizarre.

I found the author's insertion of her life to be a good tool, but it also got clunky. I appreciate that the author placed herself in the narrative, so we knew what her biases were, but at times there was too much of her story. The book had trouble flowing and got bogged down in details that did not help build a good story. I was expecting more of a story narrative, but it never quite emerged.

Maybe this is actually a review in favor of the book, but I found it to be hard to read.Not because it wasn't well written - in fact it was vivid and at times so gripping that I felt uncomfortable - I think I just didn't groove with the subject.

I did not like the subject matter, I did not like the characters. That does not make it a bad book, it just was not right for me. The descriptions were vivid and at times the situation seemed so unnecessarily cruel and heart wrenching. If this subject appeals to you, read this book. If high school was better left as a distant memory, this may not be for you.