Sungju Lee

Read for Popsugar's 2018 Reading Challenge #49: A book about a problem facing society today

I'm struggling to put my thoughts into words after reading this book. Every Falling Star is far from anything I normally read so my expectations for me liking it were pretty low. I was really surprised when I had a hard time putting the book down.

I knew a fair amount about North Korea before going into this book. More than the average person but not nearly enough (or so I think anyways). This book made me want to learn even more. Every Falling Star is a brutal story about what it's like to grown up in, what I now think of as a cult-like country. When you're reading you almost have a hard time believing it's real. No one could possibly think that growing up like this is ok. It breaks your heart each time you remember that it's a true story yet you're still cheering the characters on, hoping that things will turn out in the end.

What I really liked about this particular novel is that it's aimed towards young adults. I think that made the story a little bit easier to read and I think it will make more of an impact on young adults than most other non-fiction books. This is one book that I would have been glad to read had it been a mandatory book in school. I can only hope that more people will pick it up and want to learn more about North Korea like I did.… (more)