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A harrowing memoir. . . . Intricate in historical context. . . . The Last Girl leaves readers with urgent, incendiary questions.”— The New York Times Book Review So as can be imagined this is a very visceral and sad book. But the writing is straight-forward, succinct, and beautiful. The reader is taken into Nadia’s family, her home, and then her forlorn tragedy. At the end we get a better understanding of what it is like to be a survivor – and guilt when family, relatives, and friends do not make it. She has a rage and hate of ISIS, and also of the individual men who used their power to sexually subjugate her. Some of these men were “upstanding” members of the religious community who occupied nice homes that they took over from those who were forced to leave – and then brought in their sex slaves. What starts out as harmless fun between friends soon turns sinister and Rachel finds herself entangled in something much bigger than she ever imagined. A truly satisfying read
This book helped me see a more in-depth and deeply personal picture than I would ever have been able to know any other way. Thank you and God bless you Nadia for opening yourself up about something which has cost you so much. Eternal rest to your family and may you find peace along with the justice you seek. Writing for The Washington Post, Alia Malek stated that Murad "writes with understandable anger but also with love, flashes of humor and dignity". [5] Ian Birrell wrote for The Times that Jenna Krajeski, the American journalist who co-authored the book, "captures Murad's tremulous voice well". [6] For the Yazidi community and for Nadia, religion, ethnicity and family are one. They are inseparable, and so the book begins by explaining the myths, customs and beliefs central to the community. Understanding their beliefs is essential to understanding the choices they make. To those of the Western mindset, many Yazidi beliefs will be perceived as foreign and strange. Horror fic writers have nothing on our contemporaries. This is a story to illustrate it: a story of a girl who went through true horrors and miraculously lived to tell us about it.With the twists in the book I didn’t figure them out too soon which I liked because that made it all the most interesting. Although there were aspects that were easy to spot from details that were included, I still found myself guessing right till the very end. Nadia and her community in Kocho are Yazidis, a minority religion practiced in Iraq. Yazidis worship what ISIS believed to be a fallen angel
Offers powerful insight into the barbarity the Yazidi suffered alongside glimpses into their mystical culture . . . this is an important book by a brave woman, fresh testament to humankind’s potential for chilling and inexplicable evil’ Ian Birrell, The Times I loved the character dynamics in this, really intriguing interactions and relationships that were difficult to pin down keeping things unexpected and tense. The author plays on the classic psychological horror theme really well, plus the storyline is cleverly woven to keep the reader off kilter with a genuine sense of unease. This book should make us all angry and full of shame that we stand and watch genocide and worse, much WORSE, unthinkably WORTH and do nothing or extremely little.
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This author writes so well and does a decent job with her characters. I really loved the three sisters and enjoyed a fair amount of this book, but I kept cringing at how much information was being thrown at me in almost every sentence. "Overdescribed" is not a word, but it applied here. Although I do not think that I am defined by my captivity—no Yazidi is—the woman and activist I am today is because of the genocide. I know that the rest of my life is shaped by what ISIS did to my people. The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, the author of this book, for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict." This, according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement on October 5, 2018 in Oslo, Norway. The pope also recommended reading Iraqi Yazidi Nobel Prize winner Nadia Murad’s book, The Last Girl, which he said he had read, commenting that “everything that the world thinks about women is concentrated there . . . However, the world cannot function without women,” he insisted’ La Croix International
This inspiring memoir takes us from her peaceful childhood in a remote village in Iraq through loss and brutality to safety in Germany. Courage and testimony can change the world: this is one of those books. And, meanwhile, the entire civilized world could not muster the courage to do something about this evil. In literacy or drama, children can hot seat and discuss the dialogue scenes and situations in the story. Lighter moments are brief but offer a counterpoint to the otherwise dour depiction of human nature in this book. Murad's attorney, Amal Clooney, a Lebanese-British barrister, wrote the foreword to The Last Girl. [1]We see the psychological impact of seeing your family shot dead before your very eyes, the physical damage and disability of war injuries and the damage to the community that will take years to recover from. Before ISIS came, I considered myself a brave and honest person. Whatever problems I had, whatever mistakes I made, I would confess them to my family. I told them, “This is who I am,” and I was ready to accept their reactions. As long as I was with my family, I could face anything. But without my family, captive in Mosul, I felt so alone that I barely felt human. Something inside me died. (c)
We follow along as Rachel navigates this new school filled with pretentious rich kids and tries to blend in as best she can. The story is paced well and I didn’t feel bored at any point with the plot. It moved along nicely and I like that there was a good build up to the ending and didn’t trail off at any point.
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Yazidism is an ancient monotheistic religion, spread orally by holy men entrusted with our stories. Although it has elements in common with the many religions of the Middle East, from Mithraism and Zoroastrianism to Islam and Judaism, it is truly unique and can be difficult even for the holy men who memorize our stories to explain. I think of my religion as being an ancient tree with thousands of rings, each telling a story in the long history of Yazidis. Many of those stories, sadly, are tragedies. (c) There’s also really good descriptions throughout the book that transport you into their world. I could clearly imagine myself being there which I love when getting lost in a story.
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