I just finished reading this book. It is the story of a young girl - she was only 13 or 14 when she finally made it to South Korea, with her mother and eventually her older sister escaping North Korea. 

She tells of what it is like to live in North Korea, escaping to China and then eventually to Seoul. 

It took her older sister 8 more years to get to South Korea. Yeonmi tells about working hard to get an education, visiting the US, which is considered the evil nation to North Koreans, becoming a Christian, and working with others who have endured even harder conditions than she did. It is not easy reading in many ways. She has had to go through so many horrible things. Her father was able to escape to China only to die of cancer a short time later.