Review by New York Times Review
Jang evokes childhood in 1970s North Korea with memories of her "one and only toy," a piece of string that she twisted into shapes until it fell apart. Her schooling consists of criticism sessions and acting as unpaid farm labor for four months every year. Yet Jang survives with her compassion unscathed. In jail, she shares her scarce rations with cellmates, asking in return for pledges to reunite outside North Korea. Such a show of humanity in an utterly inhuman environment lifts her tale of extraordinary suffering. On the misery index, Jang's book receives a solid 10/10. She charts her disastrous first marriage to an abusive, unfaithful, debt-ridden alcoholic, who - aided by her own mother - secretly sells their baby for 300 won and two bars of soap. She flees to China, where she herself is sold to "the village idiot." She escapes, but is so crazed with hunger she trades sex for a single meal. She is twice caught and sent to North Korean prisons, once while pregnant, when she is informed the baby will be killed. Finally, she smuggles herself and her infant son through China and Mongolia to freedom in Canada.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 29, 2015]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The most effective element in Jang's often tragic, thought-provoking memoir documenting her life in 1970s North Korea is the conversational, anecdotal mode in which it is told, akin to an oral history. Jang, recounting her story to Amnesty International Media Award-winning journalist McClelland, spares no detail of her harrowing upbringing in North Korea during a decade of famine, when she was often starving and was locked inside the house by her grandmother during the day. Jang attempts to better her circumstances by crossing over to China illegally, which results in her arrest, and marries an abusive man who, with Jang's mother's aid, sells her son, Sungmin, to a couple who live on a naval base. Subsequently, Jang is bedridden, "receiving no rations... after a week I had to return to work." Lamenting the loss of her son and rejecting offers from other suitors-"I didn't want another man. I wanted Sungmin"-she sets out to find him on the naval base, but the search proves fruitless. Her escape is suspenseful as she becomes a refugee in Mongolia and, ultimately, Toronto. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Born in rural North Korea, Jang was the oldest of four children. Her family suffered because they had relatives who escaped to South Korea. Hunger was never far off, but the 1990s famine that claimed millions of lives eroded the entire country. Jang's first son-conceived when she was raped by a man she was compelled to marry-was sold by her own mother, initially in hopes of saving the child's life. Driven by starvation, Jang escaped to China multiple times. The pattern of prison and flight was finally broken when her second child was threatened with government-sanctioned murder, and Jang miraculously survived her final journey out. Reader -Janet Song's voice and cadence are so breathy and anxious that her aural narratives start to run together, as if she is voicing one never--ending tale of woe. Jang's important, inspiring story would have been better served by a narrator with more nuance, range, and maturity. VERDICT Despite the issues with its narration, Stars should not be overlooked by readers searching for an indelible story of indomitable courage and fearless resilience told with unflinching candor and unbreakable love. ["An emotional and engrossing work that sheds light on daily life in this opaque country": LJ 7/15 starred review of the Norton hc.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian -BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
One woman's life in, and desperate escape from, North Korea. North Korea is so removed from the commerce of the digital age that when a story emerges from behind the candied gloss of government-produced video clips, the world eagerly pays attention. Hence the recent spate of memoirs from those brave souls who have escaped the restrictive country. Here, with the help of award-winning journalist McClelland, Jang (the name she later chose when safely in Canada) reveals the trials of growing up in 1970s Chosun (another term for North Korea) for one born into a family out of favor with the regime. At a young age, Jang learned that her mother's grandfather and uncle had committed the worst atrocity possible by sympathizing with Americans during the war and fleeing to the south afterward. This action banned subsequent generations from ever joining the party and relegated them to harsh living conditions. Jang repeatedly describes the widespread poverty and starvation that were constants of daily life in this caste society. Her hunger was so deep that at one point she swallowed a handful of uncooked rice she stole to supplement a diet of weeds. In fact, scarcity of food was one of the main contributing factors that impelled Jang to slip back and forth to China to trade seafood for other staples to help support her family. And yet, when Kim Il-sung died, Jang and her mother didn't think twice about taking earnings from a day's sale of hard-boiled eggs to purchase chrysanthemums to honor his passing. Such ironies of North Korean life blaze through this refugee's memoir. Despite being a survivor's tale of unimagined affliction involving human trafficking, rape, imprisonment, the loss of a child, and exile, it is riddled with regime-inspired themes of guilt and self-deprecation. The book includes a translator's note and an afterword by Korea-Pacific Studies professor Stephan Haggard. A courageous tale of physical and mental endurance sure to bring to further light conditions in North Korea. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
