The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Demick, Barbara. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. Spiegel & Grau, 2009.

In Chapters 1 - 4, Demick introduces a few of her subjects: Mi-ran, the audacious schoolgirl of low social status; Jun-sang, her ambitious boyfriend of high social status; and Mrs. Song, a 'true believer' in the North Korean regime with a big and, at time, dysfunctional family. Mi-ran and Jun-sang's relationship was romantic and emotional, but not very physical, and Demick explains that the pair were always uncertain about their futures owing to the fact that marryign Mi-ran would harm Jun-sang's chances of a prosperous life in Pyongyang. On the other hand, Mrs. Song, already living in relative wealth in Chongjin owing to her husband's good job, had to cope with the stresses of having a husband who speaks against the regime at times, even as a joke. Mrs. Song's faith began to waver when, in the 1990s, a real famine hit North Korea and made food scarce even for her own family. Her own daughter, Oak-hee, had long ago ceased to believe in the regime.

Chapters 5 - 8 introduce Dr. Kim, a pediatrician at a hospital in Chongjin, who had to treat numerous dying patients without sufficient medical supplies. Mi-ran, on the other hand, began work at a kindergarten and had to witness numerous children drop out of school or die of starvation.

Chapters 9 - 12 further examine the effects of the famine. Mrs. Song's husband and son died and she was on the brink of starvation. But, through her own ingenuity, she began to make cookies and sell them on the black market to earn money and buy food for herself and her daughter, whom she had moved in with. Kim Hyuck is then introduced as yet another subject of the book. Abandoned to an orphanage by his father as a child, Hyuck grew up smuggling and stealing to feed himself, a set of skills he relied on even as an adult but which landed him in a labor camp.

In Chapters 13 - 16, Demick says that Jun-Sang and Mi-ran both came to the conclusion that their lives in North Korea are stifled and unfulfilling, but they did not share these ideas with each other. Instead, Mi-ran and her family left for China, from where they went to South Korea. By the time Jun-sang realized she was gone, Mi-ran was already in a different country. Jun-sang berated himself for not sharing his own plans with her and running away with her. Mrs. Song's daughter, Oak-hee, also left North Korea after being hit by her husband. She ended up in China where she married a Chinese farmer and began smuggling goods into North Korea as a business. She eventually was caught and sent to a detention centre, though she was released after her mother bribed an official.

In the final chapters of the book (from Chapter 17 to the epilogue), Demick explains how each of her subjects succeeded in defecting to South Korea. All of them went through China first, and, upon arrival in South Korea, had to overcome challenges surrounding the integration process. Mi-ran married a South Korean man and had a child, experiencing happiness soon after defection. Jun-sang eventually married a South Korean woman, too. Hyuck enrolled in college and began doing public speaking to educate South Koreans about the North Korean regime. Oak-hee and her mother brought over some more family members from North Korea. Finally, Dr. Kim got a new medical license and was able to begin practicing medicine in South Korea.