Ha-na and Seng-il each endure despair-filled lives of starvation and violence under the oppressive regime of North Korea, but their hope can't be extinguished as they search for a better life and discover what it means to love.
Fifteen-year-old Ha-na longs for her father's love and hopes their escape from North Korea in the late 1990s will mean an end to hunger and hardship. Her hope for a better life in China is destroyed when her father sells the young teen into a marriage where she is subjected to abuse both day and night. With a newborn baby to protect, Ha-na must escape their abusers if she is to have any hope of forging a new path for them both.
All seventeen-year-old Seng-il has ever known is hunger. Forced to flee the famine devastating Kim Jong-il's North Korean regime at the start of the new millennium, he crosses the Chinese border. But he soon realizes that this new world has its own dangers. Discovered and returned to his homeland, Seng-il is imprisoned, starved, and beaten to the brink of death, but his drive to escape the horrors of his country never dies. Risking certain death if he is captured again, Seng-il crosses the border once more into the unknown.
In their quest for freedom, these two teenagers both face impossible choices and death. Alike in their need for survival, how far will they go to eat and be safe? Will they find true independence or liberty? Will they ever know life outside of the shadows and the underbelly of Chinese society? Will they ever have space for love and a "real" life?