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    Nom de pixelAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 12:02pm

    This is insulting to her journalistic integrity and how much risk she took, but not surprising. I have noticed that a lot of books authored by women are marketed to fail. A few years ago, I decided to make an effort to read more female authors (and have read some amazing books as a result), but I can't get past the covers on a lot of them. I swear that publishers will take a great piece of literature and throw a picture of a woman in oversized sunglasses and a hat on the cover just to make sure that I don't take it seriously.

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      Come quickly! I am tasting stars!Nom de pixel
      6/27/16 12:12pm

      This x 1 million. I am so susceptible to cover art. I try to be sensible, but I end up passing books by because of their pastel, saccharine covers.

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      rslwnNom de pixel
      6/27/16 12:21pm

      I made a resolution a couple of years ago: no white, male, cis, straight authors (except for the occasional anthology entry). Honestly, I haven’t missed them.

      In particular, if you’re on Twitter, following diverse authors will just open the door for you, since you’ll sort of organically learn which other authors they hang out with or admire.

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    Snacktastic Part II: the Snack AwakensAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 11:54am

    I read this book. I thought few books captured how censored and boxed in foreign workers are in North Korea in terms of witnessing everyday life. They try to see life through these tiny cracks; she even talks about the malaise. I think she may have been a lot more accurate than most foreign writers over there— I think more comfortable portraying how achingly shut down her life was and then was criticized for it. ETA: I think it's important to say that you'll feel frustrated at reading this book because you will want more in depth and that's part of the point.

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      GemmabetaSnacktastic Part II: the Snack Awakens
      6/27/16 11:58am

      I think she may have been a lot more accurate than most foreign writers over there

      Just the mere fact that she, as a South Korean, can understand what the people around her are saying puts her head and shoulders above pretty much any other “foreigner” who gets to see into that country.

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      Snacktastic Part II: the Snack AwakensGemmabeta
      6/27/16 12:03pm

      True and she was a worker, not a tourist or a visitor. The other book I liked was a graphic novel called Pyongyang by a French Canadian writer named Guy Delisle who went over there to do some illustrating. I think you get more from people who have to spend time there working and not on a tour.

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    LynxAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 12:11pm

    Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but if the book is written entirely in first person about one particular experience, that’s really not some academic study on the status of North Korea, unless you’re foot noting it up and down.

    Not that I don’t share her frustration being marketed as a memoir, but I think this is why it’s important to go with the correct imprint/publisher.

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      freaks go all the wayLynx
      6/27/16 12:14pm

      Wait, did I miss something? Who said it was an academic study?

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      FridayFridayLynx
      6/27/16 12:19pm

      It’s not academic study, it’s investigative journalism.

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    CavitySearchAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 11:52am

    This is exactly how men writing novels is “literary fiction” but the same book written by a woman is categorized as “romance.”

    This woman is so incredibly brave for going undercover and risking her life, I hope she self-publishes her work hoe she would have liked to have it presented. I would love to read it.

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      VulcansAreHeartbreakersCavitySearch
      6/27/16 12:34pm

      This is exactly how men writing novels is “literary fiction” but the same book written by a woman is categorized as “romance.”

      This is how I felt reading the Hunger Games. There’s so much about classism and politics and PTSD in those books. Far more of that than anything about romance. And yet...it was marketed to teen girls as a romance novel with a love triangle. Huge fucking disservice to the work. What gets me is that if it had been written by a man, with a male protagonist, people would still be talking about how ‘important’ it is. It would be on school reading lists. But no. It’s got girls in it, so no one should take it seriously.

      This is far more gross. This is a real woman who risked her life to report on something, but the publisher marketed her horribly. And the critics skewered her for the marketing fail.

      Now that this is all out, it’d be nice if the people who reviewed her poorly would take a minute to reflect on the fact that it was so easy for them to assume she was just some ditzy lady writing superficially about North Korea. Seriously, do some introspection and try to understand why it was impossible to see through the marketing bullshit.

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      merchantfanVulcansAreHeartbreakers
      6/27/16 12:39pm

      I’ve had to argue with people to say that it was legitimate sci-fi (it’s set in an alternate future with multiple invented technologies). Funny how male geeks tend to omit female written novels when it comes to “true” sci-fi.

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    fortheloveofbeetsAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 11:48am

    Depressing, but not surprising.

    “Girl stories were for girls. Boy stories were for everyone.”

    [http://news.nationalpost.com/life/everybody...]

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      TheBurnersMyDestinationfortheloveofbeets
      6/27/16 12:02pm

      You know how women are; doing years of preparation, risking their lives, living in a country where they might be killed if they are found out, trying to tell the world about conditions that are deliberately hidden from us- you know, girl stuff. You can’t take it too seriously, you know how emotional they get about those human rights abuses.

      /s

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      freaks go all the wayfortheloveofbeets
      6/27/16 12:27pm

      It looks like a fascinating book, and the responses from some of the critics blows my mind. I hate to be that person. I can’t help but think that if she were a white man, her face would have been plastered all over the press after the book’s publication, and she’d be called a hero. But the book got mishandled from the get-go by being labeled a memoir, and it is a fucking travesty that her own publisher would devalue her work like that.

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    FrankieAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 12:14pm

    It sounds like a very interesting read. This article kinda of skips over the part that she deceived the school and put it and the teachers at risk as well as the students by telling her experience. Without having read the book, I am not sure anything is accomplished, I would think most people in the west would acknowledge North Korea has a few problems.

    The reviews seems to be positive as a whole.

    From the Chicago review:

    The result of this undercover work is her remarkable memoir, “Without You, There Is No Us: My Time With the Sons of North Korea’s Elite.” It is a deeply unsettling book, offering a rare and disturbing inside glimpse into the strangeness, brutality and claustrophobia of North Korea.

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      Marx and SparksFrankie
      6/27/16 12:51pm

      Your comment reads like you either didn’t read the article or missed the point entirely. Investigative journalism often has the potential risk of harming people—she used all of the mitigating strategies she could, as any investigative journalist would (and does).

      The reviews do not, as a whole, seem positive as they downgrade the immense risk she, herself, took; call investigative journalism “memoir”; and call her deceptive, etc.

      Without having read the book how can you even venture a guess as to if “anything is accomplished”?

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      FrankieMarx and Sparks
      6/27/16 1:30pm

      I read the article and understand the point. Just not sure that I can agree with the point. I can’t argue with her experience, nor do I doubt what she has said. I am just not sure there is anything more to the story than the book wasn’t marketed the way she would have liked to to have been.

      There are no mitigating strategies in this case. I am sure that the entire school was subjected to increased scrutiny after the publication.

      She was deceptive.

      Ms. Kim, who is not a practicing Christian, conceded in an interview that she had been deceptive in applying for a teaching position at the school and clandestinely taking notes for the purpose of a book.

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    The Real UnsharerAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 11:48am

    Some even denounced me, a South Korean woman, as someone who had merely returned “home” to North Korea; to them, I hadn’t gone undercover at all. Which is another way of saying that what I had written was personal, and therefore by definition not authoritative.

    As a person of Asian descent, I have to ask: WTF?! For real, the only these people would believe what she’d written is if she’d been a white man / woman who went to North Korea?

    Also, degrading her journalism, which put her at personal risk, as a “personal journey” is a load of crap.

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      Nom de pixelThe Real Unsharer
      6/27/16 12:24pm

      Don’t you know that the experiences of the world’s cultures are only valid if seen through a white, western lens? The actual experiences of the people who live in those societies are not to be trusted because they might have preconceived ideas.

      /s

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    DragonsDaughterAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 12:24pm

    Who was the (male) journalist who just went undercover as a prison guard to do an expose on the privatization of prison system? Anyone chastise him for emotionally damaging the inmates on his cell block through deception?

    Yeah, I’ll just wait here.

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      UngreyMyHeartDragonsDaughter
      6/27/16 1:16pm

      This one, right? http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/...

      I’m still reading it. That piece certainly puts the “long” in longform. (It’s excellent, btw.)

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      Notorious GIGIUngreyMyHeart
      6/27/16 3:28pm

      She probably means Ted Conver. The article you posted is brand new.

      https://www.amazon.com/Newjack-Guardi...

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    ISpeakJiveAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 11:52am

    Kim remembers numerous interactions at readings where someone—“often white, often male, inevitably hostile”—would challenge her work, claiming North Korea wasn’t that bad...

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      AllisonISpeakJive
      6/27/16 12:17pm

      And yet when someone I know in the military asked his CO about asking to do the Pyongyang Marathon (yes, a preemptive question about officially asking), he was assigned to give a thorough presentation to several higher-ups on the history and myriad dangers of North Korea (all things he already knew from his years in the military and as an aware citizen). Of course, he was not allowed to go. These general population mouth-breathers are apparently unaware that North Korea IS “that bad” and that our military won’t even allow a multi-tour veteran to run a civilian marathon there.

      Kudos to Kim for her bravery and resolve to do this in the first place and to now confront the mouth-breathers.

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      CassieBear2ndBiggestFanISpeakJive
      6/28/16 10:07am

      That part sort of shocks me: who are the white guys who support North Korea? The idea of white men in America who think North Korea isn’t that bad is news to me: I mean they make video games with North Korea as the antagonist, they give speeches in the House and Senate about being “soft on North Korea,” they tried to torpedo Bill Clinton’s deal with North Korea in the 90s because “North Korea is bad.”

      So who the hell are these “North Korea is alright” white dudes, and where did they come from?

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    HaHaYouFoolAnna Merlan
    6/27/16 12:03pm

    This made me go back and read my own review of Kim’s book. Apparently, I fell victim to this memoir-ization of her book, and you know what? It does a real disservice to the book. It made the read more confusing. It didn’t make sense to me as a memoir, and I struggled to understand what was right in front of my face. Finding this out about her fights with her agent suddenly and dramatically shifts it all into place. It all makes sense now - and it is a much better book than I thought.

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      law&fastfoodorderHaHaYouFool
      6/27/16 2:00pm

      Agreed! I kept wondering why there was so much space dedicated to updating about her uncertain long distance boyfriend in Brooklyn, and reading about this makes it make so much more sense

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