Kimjongilia - Victor Fox

                If I didn’t think North Korea was a strange and cruel country before reading this book, I certainly do now. As a Westerner, this way of life boggles my mind and I applaud the bravery it took to write this book and open the lid on the cruelty that is manipulating these people’s lives. Peter Chang is an angry soul who becomes a killer soldier to escape the demons of his mother’s death. Eventually he is assigned the job of watching out for another spy whose assignment is to marry and inform on a top Korean leader. Kim Suk didn’t realize just how twisted and cruel Kim Sung was until she ends up in a loveless marriage to him. She ends up having an affair with Peter and, although I’m not sure they are in love, they end up depending on each other to survive. This is more than a love story and I had to keep checking to make sure it is actually a non-fiction book because it is truly unbelievable which is what makes it so interesting and hard to put down. The writing is superb and the characters, although flawed, are written flawlessly. There is quite a bit of sexual content which may be a problem for some people but this is a story that needs to be told to open people’s eyes about North Korea and the regime there. This is a book that I just couldn’t stop reading. I read the digital version which worked well on my ereader. The cover doesn’t look particularly enticing but the old man sitting on the bench will make sense within the first few pages.