Juche Box Set (Books 1-4) by Adria Carmichael

 

Fans of YA dystopian will want to get their hands on this box set. Check out Juche from Adria Carmichael. I love box sets because you don't have to wait in between books! And this series is dystopian with a twist. Read an excerpt and then explore the setting with the author. Be sure to let her know what you think in the comments as you follow the tour for more. Best of luck entering the giveaway!

Just when Areum - daughter of a privileged family in the totalitarian state of Choson (North Korea) - thought she was free from her personal prison, her world collapses around her as her family is taken away in the middle of the night to a hell-like camp in the mountains where people who have strayed from the righteous path are brutally re-educated through blood, sweat, tears, and starvation.

There she has to fight for survival together with the family she hates and is forced to re-evaluate every aspect of her life until then: her deep resentment toward her twin sister; her view of her father in the face of mounting evidence that he is a traitor with the blood of millions of fellow countrymen on his hands; and even her love and affection for the Great General - the eternal savior and protector of Choson, whom she had always considered her true father.

Note from the author:

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like when seen through an indoctrinated mind?

This is a topic that has intrigued me for as long as I can remember, so when I came up with the idea to write a book many years ago, I decided to create it from the viewpoint of a victim of indoctrination… which in the end became Areum (the protagonist of the story).

What I try to explore in this story is how deep the indoctrination of a 14-year old girl can run and how much “reality” it can be exposed to before breaking… if it will break at all. As a comparison, the defectors from North Korea who arrive in South Korea are isolated for three months in a de-programming facility called Hanawon before they are allowed to join society where they go through this process in a more controlled (and less brutal) way than Areum.

I hope you will enjoy this slightly different take on the dystopian genre!

Read an excerpt:

A loud screech in the sky interrupts me. I look up. A large black crow is circling high above us. Then another crow joins in. The screeching intensifies. Another one joins in, and then another. Before I know it, the whole sky has turned black with a swirling mass of crows, flying in a tornado-like circle right above us. I feel their beady eyes looking down at me.

The mass of crows now forms a funnel, spiraling downward toward us. I scream and put my hands up in defense. But the crows don’t target me. The black moving mass instead completely consumes the living corpse of my dad.

“NOOO!” I scream as I helplessly witness the crows dismembering him piece by piece right before my eyes. They pull his eyeballs out from their sockets. They tear the skin from his arms and legs. I cry and scream. I want to run to him, to help him… but I still can’t move.

Then it’s all over, and the crows disperse and ascend back into the sky, bringing their ear-piercing screech and the pieces of my father’s body with them. What was left of him is now again lying lifelessly on the ground. His face is still turned to me, but he had no more dead eyes to look at me with.

Another screech makes me look up to the sky again. The crows are circling ominously. Faster and faster. The screeching intensifies, cutting painfully into my ears, as they once more swirl down towards me like a tornado. I put my hands up in defense and scream as the first crow brushes against my hair. Another one grabs my arm with its claws. I try to break free, but my feet are still glued to the ground.

I now have crows all over my body, and as the one on my arm penetrates my skin with its beak, I…

Buy links:

Juche 1 – The Demon of Yodok 

Juche 2 – The Weeping Masses 

Juche 3 – The Storm of Storms

Juche 4 – Freedom or Death 

Juche 1-4 Box Set

(affiliate links included)

Exploring Juche

Juche is set in 1994 North Korea at the onset of the great famine that is estimated to have taken millions of lives. On the surface, the famine was caused by storms and floods ravaging the country, destroying much of the harvest. However, as you can imagine, the real reason millions of people starved to death was more complex than that. The real reason is that the country had been mismanaged by an incompetent totalitarian regime, headed by the Kim family, for decades.

In short, the victory of the Allies in World War II ended the Japanese annexation of Korea, and the country was divided along the 38th parallel. The north was controlled by the Soviet Union, and the south by United States. The division was supposed to be temporary, but as we all know – the reunification never happened.

In the beginning, the north was more prosperous than the south because the communist bloc established a lot of heavy industry and infused enormous amounts of money to build up the country. The Soviet-appointed leader, Kim Il Sung, modeled the new nation after Stalin’s Russia.

So, what does that have to do with the famine in the 90-ies? The answer is – everything. Because the infusion of investments, equipment, and other forms of aid never stopped. Both the Soviet Union and China prioritized strengthening the communist bloc as a counterweight to the capitalist west, so all new communist countries received support, but North Korea received extensive support since it shared an actual border with the enemy (The US) in the south.

As a result of this, the new regime of North Korea never had to concern themselves with setting up a functioning society and industry. Whenever they needed something, they just asked the Soviet Union for help. And if they didn’t give it, they got it from China. In that way, the regime could focus on the only thing they were genuinely interested in – consolidating power.

And all worked well for many decades. The country established a food distribution system that fed the entire country, and the people who managed to evade being sent to the gulags maintained a decent living standard. But then China started experimenting with capitalism in 1979 and gradually became less interested in maintaining their needy southern neighbor. And the same happened when Russia turned capitalist over night in 1991. Suddenly came demands that North Korea needed to repay their depts, and if they wanted more equipment, they needed to pay for it. The only problem was that North Korea didn’t have any money. Because for decades they had just been going about their business, building enormous statues and lavish palaces for their rulers, as well as hosting the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students 1989, for which they had spend 25% of their yearly budget on building new hotels and stadiums.

The country was broke, and all outside help was gone. And it was then that disaster struck and wiped out their harvests in the 90-ies. But does that mean it was the storms and floods that made millions of people starve to death? No, it was the selfishness off the rulers. They have the blood on their hands, especially after they turned down humanitarian aid from the United Nations because they demanded to be allowed to send independent observers to make sure the aid ended up in the right hands (and mouths). The regime couldn’t allow outsiders to see the state the country actually was in, so they decided it was safer for the ruling class to let people starve without and audience than to save them with an audience.

And it is in this setting that my protagonist – Areum – embarks on her journey to fight starvation and her deeply entrenched indoctrination.

Adria Carmichael is a writer of dystopian fiction with a twist. When she is not devouring dystopian and post-apocalyptic content in any format - books, movies, TV-series and PlayStation games - she is crafting the epic and highly-addictive Juche saga, her 2020 debut novel series that takes place in the brutal, totalitarian nation of Choson. When the limit of doom and gloom is reached, a 10K run on a sunny day or binging a silly sitcom on a rainy day is her go-to way to unwind.


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