A vivid portrait of a ruthless, egocentric woman driven by an unrelenting sense of entitlement and destiny.
In the dark labyrinth of North Korean politics, a princess has emerged as a major power.
Lee is a U.S.–based academic who has been studying and writing about North Korea and the Kim family for many years, so he is perfectly situated to provide a detailed examination of Kim Yo Jong (b. 1987), the younger sister of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and the likely heir apparent. She holds only a minor position in the government hierarchy, but her power, which includes the ability to sentence anyone to death for any reason, stems from being “First Sister” and a key member of the royal family. She first made headlines as North Korea's representative at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, and since that time, her profile has increased. She now makes public statements about regime policy, especially regarding foreign affairs. The Kim family has always had a reputation for bellicosity, but Kim Yo Jong has taken it to a new level, with barrages of personal insults and threats delivered in a tone of vicious sarcasm. Lee is unsurprised by her behavior, as she was called “princess” in her childhood and learned the art of disdain at her father's knee. As chief propagandist, she has cemented the power of the dynasty, emphasizing the mythical idea of the “Mount Paektu Bloodline” that began with North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. Lee believes that she enjoys being feared and has a wide streak of cruelty. Sometimes, she makes her brother look like the sensible and restrained member of the family. She can put on a charming face for media consumption, but the author warns commentators to be wary. She is, quite simply, an extremely dangerous person and would be even more threatening in the top position. It is a worrying but unavoidable conclusion.
A vivid portrait of a ruthless, egocentric woman driven by an unrelenting sense of entitlement and destiny.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781541704121
Page Count: 304
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.
A thoughtful program for eradicating poverty from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted.
“America’s poverty is not for lack of resources,” writes Desmond. “We lack something else.” That something else is compassion, in part, but it’s also the lack of a social system that insists that everyone pull their weight—and that includes the corporations and wealthy individuals who, the IRS estimates, get away without paying upward of $1 trillion per year. Desmond, who grew up in modest circumstances and suffered poverty in young adulthood, points to the deleterious effects of being poor—among countless others, the precarity of health care and housing (with no meaningful controls on rent), lack of transportation, the constant threat of losing one’s job due to illness, and the need to care for dependent children. It does not help, Desmond adds, that so few working people are represented by unions or that Black Americans, even those who have followed the “three rules” (graduate from high school, get a full-time job, wait until marriage to have children), are far likelier to be poor than their White compatriots. Furthermore, so many full-time jobs are being recast as contracted, fire-at-will gigs, “not a break from the norm as much as an extension of it, a continuation of corporations finding new ways to limit their obligations to workers.” By Desmond’s reckoning, besides amending these conditions, it would not take a miracle to eliminate poverty: about $177 billion, which would help end hunger and homelessness and “make immense headway in driving down the many agonizing correlates of poverty, like violence, sickness, and despair.” These are matters requiring systemic reform, which will in turn require Americans to elect officials who will enact that reform. And all of us, the author urges, must become “poverty abolitionists…refusing to live as unwitting enemies of the poor.” Fortune 500 CEOs won’t like Desmond’s message for rewriting the social contract—which is precisely the point.
A clearly delineated guide to finally eradicate poverty in America.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593239919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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