Oh this book is so hard to rate. It's a harrowing true story, so I can't rate it poorly for that reason, but man was it depressing to read. It also by someone who speaks another language, so the sentences were short and lacked feeling. It was just a hard read.

This is a book that I will remember forever. I am a huge fan of non-fiction stories of hope and perseverance, and this book delivered just that. It is a book of one man's escape from North Korea, a place we know so little about. Reading it, it felt like fiction because to me, there was no way that this could happen in today's world.

Masaji Ishikawa does an incredible job of drawing us in to his life story. Although there is no way we could relate, he makes it so you can really empathize with everything that is happening. He faces hurdle beyond hurdle in trying to live a reasonable life in North Korea. Every time you think things are going to get better for him, they somehow get worse. I can't begin to imagine the toll this takes on a person, but he somehow perseveres.

The women of my book club, overall didn't enjoy this book that much, they said it was really depressing. But to me it was incredible and I saw it as a testament to the power of the human spirit. Highly recommend!

Thank you to the publisher for providing this book free of charge to me as the host of a chapter of the Girly Book Club.

A River In Darkness tells the heartbreaking tale of Masaji Ishikawa's lifelong fight for freedom. Born to a Japanese mother and North Korean father, Ishikawa lived in Japan until a 'better' life in N. Korea was promised to them. At the age of 13, Ishikawa, his family & many others like them, made the move to N. Korea. From the age of 13 to 46, Ishikawa and his family lived a life of extreme poverty, fear and betrayal by the government who promised everything to them. Everything he did, he did to put what little food he could find into his family's mouth. Finally, in 1996, he realised he had to try and get back to Japan alone in order to try to improve his family's living conditions.

Ishikawa's tale needs be heard by everyone because his life experience is just one piece in the jigsaw of suffering around the world. If we don't know about stories like his, how can we fight for change?

I am glad that I had an opportunity to read this book. I really enjoyed it even though the story is based on the struggles of some one born in a mixed marriage in a society that discriminated against him. The author discussed difficult periods with honesty; dignity and strength.

I flew through this book in less than a week. A harrowing story about Masaji Ishikawa's displacement in a world where society tells him he doesn't belong kept me hooked all the way through.

I typically am not a biography fan, but Ishikawa wrote in a relatable manner that took you into his world of heartbreak, betrayal and neverending hope. His journey of being taken away from his homeland, Japan, to the "promised land" of North Korea only to find his family and many other Japanese/Koreans were greatly bamboozled into a huge lie and swept into the suppressed and impoverished life of this foreign country provides the reader with a passport to a different world.

I recommend this book to those looking to learn about the life and struggles of what others endure in other parts of the world. We only hear things on the news, but Ishikawa's account is a wake-up call. I hope one day he can finally find a place where he feels like he belongs and is reunited with his family again.

A gut-wrenching first-hand account of life in North Korea from the 1960's to 1990's. I have read other North Korea memoirs before, yet it's still completely shocking to read about the poverty and despair the local people live in. It seems like Ishikawa's life has had no happiness in it at all - from his childhood with an alcoholic, violent father, to his family's emigration to North Korea and the misfortunes that came after. Despite promises of education, jobs, housing and food, Ishikawa's family faces a day-to-day struggle to stay alive. It's unconscionable that in the 90's, there were people scavenging for acorns to stay alive.
While other books often describe life in North Korean prison camps or focus on the escape itself, Ishikawa spends most of the time describing the daily life of his family. I would therefore recommend this book to anyone wanting to catch a glimpse of the ordinary lives on people in rural North Korea.