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A review by chazzerguy
I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad by Souad Mekhennet
2.0
I guess the lesson here: A good journalist does not necessarily make a good storyteller.
The first 80-100 pages were fairly interesting... But it slowly goes downhill from there. Even though Souad Mekhennet finds herself in precarious, dangerous situations time and time again, this book is just so very... dull. I found myself speed reading the chapter in which, fearing rape, she is detained by Egyptian security. Her life flashing before her eyes as death looms... yawn. Her profiles of young adults dedicating themselves to the caliphate are monotonous. It's a shame... I think English being her fourth language shows. The writing just does not flow well. In the hands of a native speaker the storytelling could potentially be really compelling. She has certainly been in some pretty amazing situations. But this book is a slog. There are just so many characters, and it is so dense.
There is also a lot of planes, trains and automobiles. A flight here... A train there... A cab to meet an informant... On and on. And tea shops. Coffee shops. Sandwich shops. If you want to know what she got from room service while awaiting an encrypted message from a source, this might be your book.
One thing she will not let you forget: how many jihadist men are smitten with her and want to have sex with/marry her... Or how attractive she is compared to other Islamic women. Every Muslim man she encounters seems to eventually proposition her. She mentions it so many times it seems to be a little self-serving. What little she shares of her personal life seems to indicate her struggles in dating and relationships, so I wonder if those two things are related.
When I mouse-over the two star rating on GoodReads it says "It was okay" and that is exactly how I feel about this book. Not terrible by any stretch, but I just would not recommend it to too many people.
The first 80-100 pages were fairly interesting... But it slowly goes downhill from there. Even though Souad Mekhennet finds herself in precarious, dangerous situations time and time again, this book is just so very... dull. I found myself speed reading the chapter in which, fearing rape, she is detained by Egyptian security. Her life flashing before her eyes as death looms... yawn. Her profiles of young adults dedicating themselves to the caliphate are monotonous. It's a shame... I think English being her fourth language shows. The writing just does not flow well. In the hands of a native speaker the storytelling could potentially be really compelling. She has certainly been in some pretty amazing situations. But this book is a slog. There are just so many characters, and it is so dense.
There is also a lot of planes, trains and automobiles. A flight here... A train there... A cab to meet an informant... On and on. And tea shops. Coffee shops. Sandwich shops. If you want to know what she got from room service while awaiting an encrypted message from a source, this might be your book.
One thing she will not let you forget: how many jihadist men are smitten with her and want to have sex with/marry her... Or how attractive she is compared to other Islamic women. Every Muslim man she encounters seems to eventually proposition her. She mentions it so many times it seems to be a little self-serving. What little she shares of her personal life seems to indicate her struggles in dating and relationships, so I wonder if those two things are related.
When I mouse-over the two star rating on GoodReads it says "It was okay" and that is exactly how I feel about this book. Not terrible by any stretch, but I just would not recommend it to too many people.