I finally finished “In order to live” by Yeonmi Park. She tells her harrowing story of escaping the communist, authoritarian, hellscape that is North Korea. Getting out of North Korea was only the beginning for her and her mother as she had to escape human trafficking while in China, cross the Mongolian desert in the winter in the middle of the night, and face the threat of deportation - and likely execution - back to north Korea at every turn.

She’s incredibly courageous for telling her story, both in standing up in the face of threats from the regime and in reckoning with her own inner struggles.

I highly recommended this book. If nothing else it made me even more grateful that I was lucky enough to be born in the west. #bookstr