The Sister

June 15, 2023
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.

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July 31, 2023
Tufts University law professor Lee debuts with an informative if overwrought portrait of Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Lee contends that, even among her ruthless family, Yo Jong is uniquely sinister (as evidenced by her vitriolic anti-Western statements, made from her increasing positions of power within the government) and on the cusp of attaining even greater authority (evinced not only by her continued promotions and public appearances, but by reading between the lines of symbolic gestures made in official pageantry, including a procession wherein Yo Jong and her brother had the same dynastic insignia embroidered on their horses’ decorative headgear). While Lee successfully makes his case for Yo Jong’s signifiance (his theory that she is currently next in line for succession appears well-founded), as well as her worrying zealousness, the analysis is undermined by off-putting snark and flowery scaremongering (“men twice her age tremble and grovel before her”) and uncritical repackaging of combative takes on North Korean history and current geopolitics. (Lee rehashes a propagandistic Cold War narrative that calls into question the WWII-era guerrilla fighter bona fides of Kim Il Sung, the dynasty’s founder, and unpersuasively dismisses the idea that food shortages in contemporary North Korea are caused even in part by U.S. sanctions.) Readers looking for a measured take on the undeniably brutal regime will be left wanting.

Starred review from August 1, 2023
While most of the cruelest, most barbaric and sadistic state leaders have been men, women can certainly be equally vicious and murderous, and nowhere is this more evident than in North Korea. Kim Yo Jong, younger sister of current ruler Kim Jong Un, is virtually unknown on the world stage, but her brutality and maliciousness is on a par with her sibling's. As the nation's chief propagandist, Kim Yo Jong brought North Korea to new heights, or lows, of controversy, using increasingly vulgar and provocative speech that escalated from name-calling taunts to threats of nuclear attacks. Renowned East Asia and Korea professor and analyst Lee unravels the labyrinthine paths and tortured logic that drives the country's reigning dynasty, testing the possibility of the feared and reviled Kim Yo Jong assuming future leadership as her brother's successor. In doing so, he chronicles North Korea's turbulent history, which makes any such predictions inherently unreliable. Still, well-versed in interpretation when it comes to such subtleties as body language and facial expressions to divine power dynamics, Lee tells us that Kim Jong Un's younger sister is to be taken very, very seriously.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.