Book and Movie Reviews: Not Super Braggy Except to Say that I Engaged with These Texts

Good news: I've recently experienced two non-fiction stories in different media.  One was a movie and one was a book.  Here are my blurbs:

Last night my mom and I saw Spotlight, the film about the group of investigative reporters that uncovered the massive sex abuse cover-up in the Boston Archdiocese.  It was riveting and inspiring.  It also highlighted the importance of teamwork.  As David Sims writes in his Atlantic review, the film resists glorifying any one player, but rather heralds the "combined efforts of a well-run, well-staffed journalistic organ not beholden to moneyed interests, and with enough will to push past any political or social pressures."  I'm going to go ahead and heartily recommend this film.

I'm going to do the same - heartily recommend - the investigated memoir by Suki Kim entitled Without You, There Is No Us that I finished yesterday. The book is about the author's stint as a visiting English professor at a North Korean university for the sons of the ruling class.  Kim's style is spare and factual, except when she discusses the love she feels for her students.  Her descriptions of the strict and baffling rules set forth for her and the other professors by "the counterparts," their North Korean censors, highlight the role of fear in absolute control.  I'm going to call the book chilling, and maybe a little hopeful.  As Euny Hong writes in her New York Times review, "Kim's narrative suggests that the regime's stranglehold on information is starting to crack."  Gosh, I hope so.