The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime by Bradley Hope

The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime Reviews

• 
  Blaine DeSantis

  An interesting book about one young man of Korean ancestry who is so offended by the human rights abuses in North Korea that he tries to take it upon himself to effect regime change in North Korea. Good intentions lead to trying to help individuals escape to China and from there to US Consulate. Frustrated by most of his efforts he eventually tries to take over the North Korean Embassy in Spain. Sounds pretty good? Sounds better than it reads. Rather tedious recital of failed hopes and efforts. After a while it was obvious that this young man really had no idea of how diplomacy and US legislation differs from what he wanted to happen. About the midpoint of the book I had no more interest in the story, despite good research from author.
• 
  Janalyn

  Adrian Hoàng was in American Korean, a student at Yale and a rebel without a cause. That is until he started hearing about the atrocities visited on the North Koreans. He Who would start a group for like-minded people and although he started this with the best intentions it would all in with him on the run from the US marshals. This book was so interesting I couldn’t put it down and when it was over I took to Google to find out more as much as I could. In the book one of his friends said people would ask in a criticizing tone why would you want to help people you don’t know and all I could think is why wouldn’t you want to help? It always breaks my heart to hear about the people living in North Korea in this book I learned about the class system in North Korea in about those living a slaves in prison camps and it’s all just so heartbreaking. I thought those who were kidnapped and held in North Korea against their will headed bed but I have yet to hear about anyone who’s had it worse than those who have to dig out coal all day long and eat corn mash for dinner, But this review isn’t about my opinions on North Korea is about my opinions on this book and I think everyone should read it it’s sad, inspiring, heartbreaking and riveting and so much more. I totally recommend this book and think the author did an awesome job telling Adrian story. I was given this book by Nat Gally and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily. Please forgive any mistakes because I am blind and dictate my review but all opinions are my own.
• 
  Weronika

  To była bardzo chaotycznie napisana książka, autor za bardzo przeskakiwał w tematach i „akcjach”, do tego stopnia, że nie wiedziałam już o czym czytam. Sama postać Adriana Honga jest szalenie ciekawa, tajemnicza i pełna pasji (tak wynika z opowieści autora). Czytając tę książkę czułam taki dreszczyk szpiegowski, te misję, próby odbicia uciekinierów, ucieczki, i ukrywanie się. Trochę żałuję, że autor nie skupił się bardziej na działalności organizacji stworzonych przez Honga, ale i tak uważam, że jest to książka warta przeczytania, chociażby żeby zapoznać się z tematem Korei Północnej z innej perspektywy.
• 
  Tony Dúbravec

  Ak vas zaujima tema Severnej Korei, tato kniha vas nesklame i ked o tom zivote hovori z ineho uhla pohladu. Hlavna postava, Adrian Hong je povodom z Juznej Korei, narodil sa v Mexiku a zil v San Diegu. Tento chaos bol urcite jednym z dovodov, preco sa trapil pri hladani vlastnej identity. Nakoniec si vytvoril personu s jemnym mesiasskym komplexom, ktorej cielom bolo narusit stabilitu vladneho systemu v Severnej Korei. Kedze Kim Cong Un je stale neohrozenym lidrom krajiny, vieme, ze sa to Adrianovi nepodarilo. Napriek tomu to niekolkokrat skusil. Prave o zivote a cinnosti Adriana Honga a jemu blizkych spolupracovnikov je cela kniha Rebel a kralovstvo. Ak si chcete precitat o KLDR nieco faktograficke, odporucam sa poobzerat niekde inde. Ak chcete zaujimavy a obcas dramaticky pribeh, toto moze byt pre vas.
• 
  Amanda

  This story was a fascinating retelling of Adrian Hong's attempts to relocate North Korean refugees to safe places to start their lives over.
  
  I have read several books written by former North Koreans but I hadn't read any about the people who were trying to help free them. Hong's history was a fascinating read. I found myself rooting for him throughout most of the book, despite knowing the end results of his last public mission. Hong was a compelling mix of boldness mixed with innocence and naivety. He truly believed in his cause but it seemed that his optimism had no basis in reality. If dreams could be willed into existence, he would have achieved them long ago.
  
  It was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that an ivy league graduate who could have achieved material success beyond his greatest imaginings could believe in North Korea's imminent demise. It was equally amazing that his charisma and beliefs inspired so many others to embrace his beliefs. I have to admit how angry I was to read about how he roped his followers into following him without knowing his whole plan, jeopardizing their freedom and futures for potential extradition and jail time while he has disappeared into the ether and doesn't have to account for being the mastermind of the whole plan. I find that unforgivable.
• 
  Lori Tatar

  With naïveté, bravery and maybe a little insanity, this would be unbelievable if it weren’t true. A disillusioned, globetrotting university student squeaks through his graduation as he risks everything to literally change the world. He fights and recruits others to help eliminate one of the most cruel regimes in human history. Using unorthodox tactics and risking everything, Adrian Hong is a man who will not soon be forgotten.
• 
  Li Ya 🪷

  Bardzo dobra lektura, przedstawiająca historię naprawdę niezwykłego mężczyzny.
• 
  Emilythenightelf

  I think I was expecting a little more from this book, but I feel like I didn’t come out knowing more about the North Korean regime than when I started. It was extremely surface level.
  
  Second it was extremely repetitive constantly and really wasn’t moving forward very fast. Yes Adrian was smart and passionate about North Korea but he goes on with this through out every chapter like a filler throughout the book. It just felt like Adrian was this passionate kid who didn’t care about who got in trouble for his pursuit to help people. He was reckless, which is emphasize constantly by the writer.
• 
  Kony

  I picked up this book because I knew Adrian in college and was curious to see how this journalist made sense of his journey. I also wanted to learn more about the origins of LiNK (which he founded on campus 2 years after I graduated) and how Adrian's approach evolved over the years from grassroots activism, to lobbying, to underground organizing. And of course, having read about the 2019 Madrid incident in the media, I knew there must be more to the story than the press was reporting, and hoped to find additional nuance here.
  
  This is by no means a perfect book, but it provided answers to my questions and kept me engaged. It gave me insight into Adrian's background and underscored the things he had in common with me and other target recruits to his cause. It also prompted me to reflect on why I chose to keep some distance from his projects even when I felt drawn to the cause -- there was a righteous, moralistic certainty in his tone that somehow didn't resonate with me.
  
  More broadly, this book got me thinking about how much power so many of us have to make changes in our world. To support people in need. To shine a light on injustice. To say the unspoken things and foment cultural change. And there are so many reasons why people choose not to. Although Adrian did sometimes wax judgmental, he had clarity about this choice.
  
  In the end, this book leaves me sad and reflective -- about the price paid by Adrian, Chris, and Sam for their efforts; about the state of North Korea; and about the untapped power we each have to move the needle towards reducing human suffering.
• 
  anchi ✨

  3.5 - kinda interesting but not as good as expected, I feel some stories have been occurred repeatedly
• 
  Klara

  Thought provoking read and definitely makes me want to understand more about history in the Koreas.
• 
  Malena

  2,5/3
• 
  Gabriela Ujma

  długo się rozkręca, ale warto poznać tę historię , pomimo tego, jaka momentami jest szczegółowa i wnikliwa (coś dla fanów geopolityki;))
• 
  Becky B

  A biography of Andrian Hong, a Korean Mexican young man who became aware of the plight of North Koreans during his university years at Yale and started looking for ways he could help the refugees. The book then chronicles how he moved from activism and helping refugees to looking for ways to help top people in the North Korean government defect and plotting ways for the common people in North Korea to be able to rise up and overthrow their oppressors.
  
  Well that was one crazy true story. You can't help but admire Adrian's heart for suffering people, even if you don't agree with his methods all the time. The way this was written I thought maybe Adrian Hong didn't survive the adventures he created for himself but he's currently a fugitive hiding off the grid. The story outlines how sometimes the best meaning people can mess up others' operations if they jump into a situation without doing their homework and/or with too much tunnel vision (i.e. the situation he created in China for those who had already established underground escape routes for refugees). Adrian's biggest fault seems to be he has a tendency to jump in with a lot of enthusiasm without doing all the research or thinking through the ramifications fully. Having just read The Girl with Seven Names I couldn't believe Adrian thought the North Korean people were ready to revolt if only they had more communication abilities...that's not the picture you get from people like Hyeonseo Lee. It was interesting to read this after having just read that North Korean refugee's autobiography. They create an interesting contrast between the views of a fervent outsider activist and a former citizen. I read Melanie Kirkpatrick's Escape from North Korea years ago, which is now about a decade old, so it was interesting to read how things have remained the same or changed for the North Korean underground railroad since the publication of that book. I did find it astounding how much of the underground work is run by Christian organizations. It was also interesting to think about how the UN & US's focus on nuclear disarmament precludes discussions of human rights issues with North Korea it seems. Overall, this was an interesting book. I can see how they hope publication of this story will help Adrian and some of his fellow activists gain some justice in what seems like a bad misunderstanding with the Spanish government from a botched defect attempt. Recommended for those who like to read crazy biographies, modern human rights issues, and true crime (Adrian has been labeled a criminal but whether he is or not is up to the reader to decide).
  
  Notes on content: 2 strong swears in a quote. Other than that I don't remember much of anything else language-wise. No sexual content. (It is mentioned that some North Korean refugees can be caught in bad circumstances and taken advantage of, but no details.) Deaths and suffering in North Korean prison camps are mentioned but aren't really described much at all. Deaths from starvation are mentioned, and disappearances (presumed deaths) of those who cross the North Korean government are mentioned. One person is arrested for joining Adrian in an attempt to help someone defect and his prison experiences are mentioned (the food situation is what is talked about most).
• 
  Till Eckert

  This true story is very captivating and Bradley Hope does a good job painting the characters out in his book. It revolves around the question what it takes to challenge a highly misanthropic autocracy like North Korea is. The people who took on this mission are all very smart and (businesswise) succesfull people in their own ways. Adrian Hong is the centerpiece, but i found his closest ally equally interesting—and i wish Hope would have give him even more space.
  
  That leads me to the tiny bit of critique i have: coming from a standpoint of knowing most of the informations one can get about the NK system, the book had its lengths for me. Even if the author wrote in his foreword the book is for people familiar with NK, it became pretty technical at times. Sometimes there are pagelong or even chapterlong analysis and backround/historical facts about politics (sometimes also about the US and its relationship with NK). I get it: the author wanted to underfeed the story, but i more than once had the feeling: that wasn‘t really important for the story, wasn‘t it?
  
  Bradley Hope is at his strongest when he writes about the human side of things, when he get‘s self referencial and writes out of an observer eye like a reporter. I can‘t wait for his next project, and also to get a hand on his older work, like Billion Dollar Whale.
• 
  Angie

  This sounds like fiction, but it's true: a Yale graduate who sets out to take down the North Korean regime. After encountering the narrative of a North Korean escapee, Adrian Hong finds a cause that will propel him from the potential promising life of a Yale student to his current status as wanted fugitive. Hong begins by setting up a campus organization dedicated to the North Korean cause. From there, his views and the organizations and connections he builds grow ever bolder and more risky. He travels campuses and conferences speaking on the North Korean cause, meets with politicians and wealthy businessmen cultivating connections, and sets up a successive series of organizations that become more radical in mission. His ambitions grow from assisting North Korean refugees to aiding defections to an eventual goal to take down the North Korean regime and help shape its future. My opinion on Hong shifted throughout the course of the book: his dedication, his naivete, his boldness, his impatience. His actions more than once end up jeopardizing his peers, the people he hopes to help and their families, other North Korean aid organizations, and even geopolitical events. Hong comes across as both fascinating and mysterious, admirable and dangerous.
• 
  Brittany E.

  This book was so incredibly well researched and well written. I was hooked from the first page. The book tells the story of Adrian Hong Chang, a man intent on stopping the human rights atrocities that are happening in North Korea. It follows his start as a young college student and activist all the way to his current situation as an international fugitive. Throughout the book you also learn about North Korea, their history as well as their current conditions. I learned so much about what a lot of great people are doing to try to help North Korean citizens and how much more should be being done. I can't even tell you how many times I had to stop what I was doing to tell my husband or best friend about something I had just read. I feel like I learned something new on every page. I flew through it and it is one of the situations where truth is stranger than fiction. The entire thing read like a political spy thriller. Bradley Hope did such a great job telling this story and I think that it is a story that should be heard. I absolutely recommend this book!
  
  
  
  
  
  I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Abhishek Dafria

  The thrill of a good book is unmatched! After reading the earlier two books of Bradley Hope (the previous ones were co-authored), I knew his latest work could not be any less exciting and I was spot on. The Rebel and the Kingdom is the story of a rather common but driven man who had this dramatic bold idea of uprooting the North Korean leadership. And the way he goes about is nothing less than a Tom Cruise thriller - or at least that is how Hope’s book reads. It is a very interesting and humanising story that deserves to be more well known around the world which is one objective that the book fulfils. It is also a tale of how determined men can change the course of human history, make a substantial difference, inspire many along with them. The key protagonist here is no Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King but nonetheless, his lofty ideas and his grit and resolve are worthy traits to admire, and who knows what the future lies… maybe here is someone who will indeed bring about a meaningful and positive change in human history. In the meantime, Bradley Hope - keep finding such stories and writing them!
• 
  Lance Hillsinger

  The Rebel and the Kingdom is the second book by Bradley Hope I have reviewed. I gave Billion Dollar Whale a very favorable review. Rebel and the Kingdom, while not as good, still merits four stars.
  Like so many authors these days, presumably to increase sales, the author begins having a dramatic first chapter (technically a prologue) – a first chapter that is chronologically out of order. An out-of-sequence chapter robs the reader of suspense. A biography of Lincoln would not start with Ford’s theater, so Hope’s book should not have begun with the most dramatic scene in the narrative.
  The storyline is compelling, and Hope provides relevant but not excessive historical context. There are several relevant photographs and a map to help tell the story. However, the subtitle “The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow North Korea” overstates the narrative. A more accurate subtitle would be “Amateurs take on North Korea.”
  Even with an overstated subtitle and out-of-sequence first chapter, The Rebel and the Kingdom deserves more than three stars, but certainly not five.
  
• 
  Lily

  I want to write out all of my thoughts but it would be too long of an essay so I'll try to keep it short. Although I don't know much about him personally, I have a ton of respect for Adian Hong's work in helping North Korean defectors. His goal of overthrowing the NK government is extremely ambitious, but I find his passion relatable and the fact that he has been able to make an impact is impressive. I loved that this book gave me more insight into Adrian Hong, LiNK, Free Joseon, and the people surrounding the organizations. I'm especially fond of Christopher Ahn now and I'll be following his case closely.
  
  I appreciated the political and historical overviews of NK and, of course, the details about the Madrid embassy raid that I hadn't heard anywhere else. I also learned a lot about the assassination of Kim Jong Nam that I find terrifying and fascinating. I'd honestly recommend this to anyone regardless of their level of obsession with North Korea. I find it inspirational that one man's obsession can have such an effect (whether good or bad) on politics and people's lives.
• 
  Isaac Gill

  Found the writing to be not as great as the authors other 2 books (Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil). However The Rebel and the Kingdom was very informative it was also a very quick read, Hope is good at reeling readers in. I finished the book in 2 days (it's just 280 or so pages with big font). If you're curious as to what happened at the NK Spanish embassy then you'll find this book to be a good read. However if you're curious as to how Adrian Hong has remained a fugitive for almost 3 years then this book won't help much in the way of explaining.
  
  Hope did not pull any punches when it came to being fair in judging some of Hong (and his groups) actions as being foolish. Which I appreciated. If Hong did all this without outside prodding then it's truly commendable and amazing! The world needs more starry eyed do-gooding dreamers like him to put skin in the game and take serious risks to move things in the right direction, I believe.
• 
  Robert Jeens

  This book is equal parts real-life espionage thriller, a story of an idealistic young Korean-American-Mexican Yale graduate, and a not-really but somewhat naïve group of people led by said idealistic young Korean American to overthrow the North Korean government. I don’t want to give away the plot, but it covers the years from the early 2000s to 2020 and involves some of the very sensational events involving North Korea including the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the invasion of the North Korean embassy in Spain, and the defection of hundreds of North Koreans over the years.
  The author knows how to tell a story and select the best parts to keep you interested. The main players are named, their motivations and actions investigated, and the action moves well. Along the way, some top government officials from several nations are bit players, and the CIA and FBI figure very prominently in a few episodes. Well worth the read.
  
• 
  Christy Weatherholtz-Morales

  A true story and well written that I could not put this book down. I have always been fascinated by North Korea and its history and how we seem to turn our heads in concern for nuclear weapons but not the people living under Kim Jong-un. So to read about Adrian and his situation, the obsession with North Korea, and what he did/does ( he is still underground/hiding) for refugees and those wanting out was incredible. Also beyond belief is how governments and high-ranking officials do not stand up and do what is suitable for innocent people. I think we all know this, but to read about it and then go down those rabbit holes will leave you in awe and wondering why there are not more people like Adrian Hong and Christopher Ahn's in leadership positions doing the right in a place where there are many areas of gray, greed, and political deviances.
• 
  Nilesh Jasani

  The idealism and zeal exemplified by Adrian Hong are, arguably, exactly what the world needs, especially when prevailing attitudes are overly logical and patient. However, the very naivety that fuels their purpose can also pose significant risks, not only to themselves but also to others, as they pursue their ambitious goals. "The Rebel in the Kingdom" masterfully explores this double-edged sword of passion and peril.
  
  The book inspires hope and simultaneously highlights the dire circumstances faced by certain societal segments, often ignored by most of us. Through a narrative that meticulously details the efforts and failures of a small, determined group, the author captures the tragic yet hopeful essence of their journey. This saga, marked by both profound despair and a glimmer of optimism, makes "The Rebel in the Kingdom" a compelling read.
• 
  Mike

  This is the story of a man who attempted to ease the suffering of men and women who wanted to flee North Korea and who later turned his efforts to an attempt to trigger a regime change that country. Adrian Hong operated on a shoestring budget fueled by idealistic fervor. The book chronicles his efforts up to a short time after the failed attempt to get the North Korean ambassador to Spain out of the country. It also tells the story of ex-marine Christopher Ahn who supported Hong's efforts and is currently looking at the possibility of being extradited to Spain for his part in the embassy incident.
  
  If you are interested in the politics of North Korea and the efforts to alleviate the sufferings of its inhabitants this book is a great source of information, though it sometimes wanders and repeats itself.