A review by ajsterkel
The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State, by Nadia Murad

5.0

This memoir will make you want to punch people in the face. Seriously. Why is this stuff still happening?! The author was raised in a small Yazidi village in northern Iraq. In 2014, when she was 21 years old, ISIS invaded the village. They slaughtered most of the villagers, including many of Nadia's family members. Nadia was kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. She eventually escaped and made her way to Germany. There's a quote on the back of the book from The Economist that says "horrific and essential reading." I'd agree with that. Why are genocides still happening in modern times? And, why are terrorists using Facebook to sell sex slaves? (Seriously, WTF Facebook?)

For me, the most interesting part of the memoir is Nadia's observations about people who see problems and choose to ignore them. Here's a paragraph for you:

"Maybe, I thought, it was asking too much of a normal family to fight back against terrorists like the men in ISIS, men who threw people they accused of being homosexual off rooftops; men who raped young girls because they belonged to the wrong religion; men who stoned people to death. My willingness to help others had never been tested like that. But that was because Yazidis had never been shielded by their religion, only attacked. Hisham and his family had remained safe in ISIS-occupied Mosul because they were born Sunni and therefore were accepted by the militants. Until I showed up, they'd been content to wear their religion as armor. I tried not to hate them for it, because they were showing me such kindness, but I didn't love them." - The Last Girl

If I was forced to find something to complain about in the book, it would be the lack of a family tree. Nadia has a big family and a lot of friends. Sometimes I had a hard time remembering how they were all connected. That's a small complaint. This book should be required reading.