Nadia Murad: The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and my Fight Against the Islamic State

This is another book that we chose to read as a book club. I have to admit, I was really excited to read it, even though I'd never heard of it or Nadia Murad before.

The Last Girl by Nadia Murad is the tale of her fight against ISIS in Iraq. Nadia grew up in a small village in northern Iraq. Their village was generally unaffected by the American invasion in the 2000s except that American soldiers did come to their village. Nadia and her village are part of a minority religion called Yazidi. When ISIS gained power following events in Syria, they invaded Nadia's village. They killed the men of her village and took the women captive, claiming them as slaves that they were free to abuse. The Last Girl is Nadia's tale of captivity and abuse at the hands of her captors and her escape to freedom.

I loved this book. This story is raw and honest. Murad doesn't leave out the excruciating details of what she went through. In the U.S., we largely ignored ISIS and what was happening in Iraq and Syria. We ignored genocide against the Yazidi people that lived in that area. Their story was largely swept under the rug and was never reported on in the news in the U.S. Nadia's brave tale seeks to reverse that and to truly tell what happened in the land ISIS claimed. My only complaint with this book is that it is difficult to place events of her story on a timeline. She jumps around in periods of her life in an attempt to explain, and sometimes the lack of chronology was a little confusing.

In all, this book is incredible!

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