[REVIEW] Mission 27

title: Mission 27: A New Boss, A New Ballpark, and One Last Ring for the Yankees' Core Four
author: Mark Feinsand; Bryan Hoch
genre: non-fiction, sports
published: June 4, 2019 by Triumph Books
my copy: Kindle edition, 256 pages
purchase: Amazon
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

With a mix of homegrown talent and All-Star signings, the 2009 Yankees were comprised of the best. With the previous season's failed playoff bid still as fresh as the paint job on the new Yankee Stadium, a 27th championship flag represented both the floor and the ceiling in the eyes of a squad. It was the last title for the "Core Four"—Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte—who would each retire over the course of the next five years. It would be the lone title for Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett, and Nick Swisher, each of whom saw memorable peaks and valleys during their time in the Bronx. For CC Sabathia and Brett Gardner, it was their first championship, though the veterans were still in pinstripes as the latest generation of Yankees arrived for what they hope will be the next dynasty. Mission 27 is a thoroughly reported examination of an unforgettable season, packed with interviews with the full cast of key players, team executives, broadcasters, and more.

a great recap of the 2009 Yankees.

I feel that I became a Yankee fan at a perfect time. Disappointing that the Core Four is gone but glad that the Baby Bombers are up. 2019 was a wild and amazing year. And reading this really pumped me up for a World Series caliber season (but I have a bad feeling that the season is cancelled).

[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.

[REVIEW] Hidden Figures

title: Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space
author: Margot Lee Shetterly
genre: nonfiction, history, biography
publish: November 29, 2016 by HarperCollins
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4.5 / 5 stars
goodreads

Young Readers' Edition

From World War II through NASA's golden age, four African-American women confidently and courageously stepped into the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now known as NASA).  

Their job? To provide the mathematical calculations that would help increase airplane production during wartime and eventually send the United States into space for the very first time. Hidden Figures follows the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who participated in some of the United States' greatest aeronautic successes. These women who lived through and persevered against the backdrop of some of the biggest movements ever to shape our nation's history: the Civil Rights era, the Space Race, and the fight for gender equality. With photographs and rich historical detail, Margot Lee Shetterly brings to life the struggles these four women, and others, overcame to forever change the face of air and space travel.

have you seen the movie? read this book.
haven't seen the movie? read this book.

I've always been interested to read a nonfiction. I have a few now on my shelf and on my ereader but I've always been hesitating. But I finally grabbed this. I finally read this. I watched the movie, by the way. I decided to read the book because: (1) nonfiction dealing with important matters is my thing (actually anything dealing with important matters is my thing but of course those in relation to history are at the top of my priority); (2) the movie was bloodydamn great and a real eyeopener; (3)  love anything that has something to do with history, okay?