Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea

by Sungju Lee and Susan Elizabeth McClelland

Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who was forced at age twelve to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly recreates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, “his brothers,” to daily be hungry and to fear arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. This riveting memoir allows young readers to learn about other cultures where freedoms they take for granted do not exist.

• ISBN13: 9781419721328
• Publish Date: 13 September 2016
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 30 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Abrams
• Imprint: Amulet Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English
• URL: https://abramsandchronicle.co.uk/book/9781419721328-every-falling-star/

Reviews

[Chelsea]

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.

[readingwithwrin]

"Freedom Isn't Free"
See reviews first on my blog

We follow Sunju Lee from his time in the capital city as a young child to his family being sent away due to something his father did. We never learned what his father did though because:

“You see, my father was in the military. He and his story are known by the regime. Disclosing the reason would identify him and put the few relatives of my family still in North Korea at risk. I will say that if he had done what he did in a free country, such as as the United States, his actions would be viewed as merely part of the democratic process. But in Pyongyang, they resulted in my family’s explosion from the capital city and eventual separation.”

Once they got to there new home they are able to survive somewhat like they had in Pyongyang with both parents going to work and putting good food on the table, to Sunju going to school and becoming a leader there. But it was also not like the capital at all. We see an execution happen, children dropping out of school because they don’t have parents anymore and most search for food and money instead. The factories don’t pay anything anymore and there is hardly any food for anyone. Then we see the family being torn apart because his parents went in search of food leaving Sunju alone and scared. He eventually has to rely on himself and his friends. The form a gang that end up stealing, performing, fighting, drinking,& smoking in order to survive.

"At twelve years old, I now had to look after myself. I had no one to rely on to guide me to make the best decisions for my life. I had no one to come home to who would hold me and make me feel the world was safe."

At the end we do get to see some some good things happening to Sunju. He finds some of his family, he gets a new start at life, and he gets to be a teenager. We also get to see a little bit of his new life in South Korea and how he adjusted.
"My grandfather told me that love burns brighter than any star, so bright that love can be seen and felt from one end to the other. One day, when those children on other planets see our dead earth, it will be your light they see, not Kim Il-sung's or Kim Jong-il's. But the light of people like you"
While I was reading this book, I was constantly scared for Sunju and his friends. Not only were they barely surviving most of the time, but they were also taking part in extremely dangerous things that could kill them/ get them killed if they were caught. The life that Sunju has lived truly shows how strong of a person he is. I hope one day he is reunited with the rest of the people he loves and is able to help those still in North Korea.
Sunju Lee takes North Korea that we are hardly taught anything about because it is a hermit kingdom that is so secretive that it doesn’t let anything out, and makes it into understandable for the western world. This was what his real life was like while he lived there. Without him having stated that though you won’t believe this is real, because it’s a dystopian country that is happening in the 21st century. While I was reading this I kept thinking why is this allowed to be happening? Why aren’t all the other countries trying to stop this awful dictator from ruling? Well because he has a huge amount of nuclear power and it goes against agreements made by the UN (I think, I could be wrong on this and if I am please educate me on it.). Also because of how secretive North Korea is no other country know what is fully happening there, besides from accounts made by people escaping.
Plus we also have the fact that North Korea threatens to nuclear bomb us every year that is becoming a serious problem.

This book was so eye opening and terrifying that I couldn’t help, but go and look up more things about North Korea to see what other refugees that had escaped thought of it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Amulet press for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[pagingserenity]

I received this book for free from NetGalley, courtesy of ABRAMS Kids, in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Every Falling Star is an interesting read in many regards. It’s a memoir written by Sungju Lee, a North Korean defector, with help from Susan Elizabeth McClelland. The novel is about Sungju’s childhood in North Korea from when he was roughly eleven to sixteen years old and covers what he had to go through in order to survive and how he escaped the country.

Every Falling Star tells a deep and powerful story, but some of the events that happen feel like they push the boundaries of reality. It contains many aspects of dystopian novels and has more similarities with The Hunger Games than with The Life of George Washington. Still, the novel left me with the distinct impression that while some events may have been exaggerated (it is told from a child’s perspective, after all), they did indeed happen.

I really like the way Every Falling Star is told and how it is written to target children and young adults. Every Falling Star was a big eye opener for me. I think for many people, North Korea is shrouded in mystery. Every Falling Star provides some light on the manner and shatters many misconceptions I had about North Korea and its people, starting with the fact that all of its citizens are happy or at least satisfied with their government. As such, I feel like this book is a must read for people of all ages as it has the unique power to educate a population and to fight ignorance.

Another highlight of Every Falling Star is the characters and the relationships that develop. I really enjoyed reading about how seven boys with different personalities and backstories started a working relationship that over time, evolved into a brotherhood. The story managed to captivate me in a way that allowed me to connect and empathize with characters who are very different from myself.

While I thought the writing is nice and flowy for the majority of the memoir, it does feel choppy every once in awhile. At times, it felt too childish and other times too mature. The novel also has a lot of dialogue, which I am impartial to, but may contribute to the disjointed feeling. That being said, I did find many golden quotes within the pages.

The pacing is also a little off. I get that some years might have been more eventful than others, but while the majority of the story spans four years, I felt like a significant amount of the novel is dedicated to only one or two, regardless if that actually was the case or not. As a result, I had a hard time keeping track of time and of Sungju’s age.

In conclusion, Every Falling Star is an inspiring tale of friendship, hope, and perseverance. It’s a must read as it has the power to open the eyes of many readers about life in North Korea. While it does contain some choppy writing and awkward pacing, it is a written in a beautiful manner and contains characters that are easy to emphasize with. I would highly recommend this memoir to fans of The Book Thief and Persepolis.

For more reviews like this one and other content, visit Paging Serenity.