I don't understand all of the critical raves. Is it just because no one has written a North Korea novel? The book is predictable, presents a mish-mash of styles (although I have to give Johnson credit for handling the different voices quite well), and presents absolutely nothing new or dynamic about North Korea. It doesn't go deep enough into what it's actually like to live there to be considered Dickensian and it doesn't go far enough into satire to be, well, a satire. Instead, it just sort of plods on for easily 150 more pages than it needed to - and even the engaging parts feel like they take hours to get through. DO NOT BELIEVE THE HYPE - more sentiment like that, Dear Leaders, at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Fv
