[REVIEW] How to Find Love in a Bookshop

title: How to Find Love in a Bookshop

author: Veronica Henry
genre: adult, contemporary, chick lit
published: July 10, 2018 by Penguin Books (first published May 19, 2016)
my copy: paperback, 352 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 3 / 5 stars
goodreads

"Absolutely delightful." --People 

The enchanting story of a bookshop, its grieving owner, a supportive literary community, and the extraordinary power of books to heal the heart 

Nightingale Books, nestled on the main street in an idyllic little village, is a dream come true for book lovers--a cozy haven and welcoming getaway for the literary-minded locals. But owner Emilia Nightingale is struggling to keep the shop open after her beloved father's death, and the temptation to sell is getting stronger. The property developers are circling, yet Emilia's loyal customers have become like family, and she can't imagine breaking the promise she made to her father to keep the store alive. 

There's Sarah, owner of the stately Peasebrook Manor, who has used the bookshop as an escape in the past few years, but it now seems there's a very specific reason for all those frequent visits. Next is roguish Jackson, who, after making a complete mess of his marriage, now looks to Emilia for advice on books for the son he misses so much. And the forever shy Thomasina, who runs a pop-up restaurant for two in her tiny cottage--she has a crush on a man she met in the cookbook section, but can hardly dream of working up the courage to admit her true feelings. 

Enter the world of Nightingale Books for a serving of romance, long-held secrets, and unexpected hopes for the future--and not just within the pages on the shelves. How to Find Love in a Bookshop is the delightful story of Emilia, the unforgettable cast of customers whose lives she has touched, and the books they all cherish.

bookshops are not just bookshops.

The title of this book and the bookshop setting are what caught my attention. I mean who wouldn't want to read about bookshops? Don't we all?

[REVIEW] In Order to Live

title: In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
author: Yeonmi Park; Maryanne Vollers
genre: non-fiction, autobiography
published: September 27, 2016 by Penguin Books (first published September 25, 2015)
format: paperback, 288 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4.5 / 5 stars
goodreads

Yeonmi Park has told the harrowing story of her escape from North Korea as a child many times, but never before has she revealed the most intimate and devastating details of the repressive society she was raised in and the enormous price she paid to escape.  

Park’s family was loving and close-knit, but life in North Korea was brutal, practically medieval. Park would regularly go without food and was made to believe that, Kim Jong Il, the country’s dictator, could read her mind. After her father was imprisoned and tortured by the regime for trading on the black-market, a risk he took in order to provide for his wife and two young daughters, Yeonmi and her family were branded as criminals and forced to the cruel margins of North Korean society. With thirteen-year-old Park suffering from a botched appendectomy and weighing a mere sixty pounds, she and her mother were smuggled across the border into China. 

Park knew the journey would be difficult, but could not have imagined the extent of the hardship to come. Those years in China cost Park her childhood, and nearly her life.  By the time she and her mother made their way to South Korea two years later, her father was dead and her sister was still missing. Before now, only her mother knew what really happened between the time they crossed the Yalu river into China and when they followed the stars through the frigid Gobi Desert to freedom. As she writes, “I convinced myself that a lot of what I had experienced never happened. I taught myself to forget the rest.” 

In In Order to Live, Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea—and to freedom.  

a must read eye-opening memoir.

I picked this book up when I saw Yeonmi Park's speech somewhere in facebook. I know about the theories talked about North Korea and I never really bothered to search about it. But after that video I saw, I got interesting. And at that time, I thought Yeonmi Park was the first escapee from North Korea. However, as days past then, I saw other nonfiction regarding people who escaped from North Korea such as The Girl with Seven Names which I also hope to read.