In terms of empathy building, this one is absolutely fantastic. Have recommended it to friends and family and students alike.

This book was so interesting and sad but what took away from it was the way the timeline was so confusing at first. I also wish there had been a family tree so I could keep track of who was a friend, cousin, and who was a brother and sister. More maps would have been nice too. The part about the family that helped her being lost was so sad. I wish there had been more about her life outside Iraq.

The Last Girl
My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
by Nadia Murad
Crown Publishing
Tim Duggan Books
Biographies & Memoirs
Pub Date 07 Nov 2017


I am reviewing a copy of The Last Girl through Crown Publishing and Netgalley:



Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in Northern Iraq. She and her family were members of the Yazidi community and lived a normal life. Nadia dreamed either of being a history teacher or opening her own Beauty Saloon.


August.15.2014 the life she had once known ended. Islamic state militants massacred men who refused to convert to Islam and women to old to become Sex Slave among the murdered were six of her brothers and not long after her Mother was killed too their bodies thrown into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced into the Isis Slave Trade along with thousands of other Yazidi girls.


Nadia was held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten until she narrowly managed to escape through the streets of Mosul. She would find shelter with a Sunni Muslim family whose oldest son risked his life to bring her to safety.


I give The Last Girl five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

Many thanks go to Duggan Books and Netgalley for the free copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review. My many blessings go to Nadia Murad for sharing her story. Murad grew up in a very close knit village in northern Iraq called Kocho united by religion known as Yazidism. This area of the world is home to Ottomans, Sunnis, Kurds, non Sunni Muslims, and even occupying Americans. The issue is ISIS. ISIS has participated in an ethnic cleansing in this part of the country. They believe the Yazidi people are devil worshipers. Whole populations of men have been down and women have been sold into the slave trade beaten and raped until they die or escape. Murad lived to tell her tale. She is now an activist. I have never read anything so harrowing in my life. I never watch tv or read the news. It's one of those things that I knew "bad things happen", but I had no idea it was like this anywhere in the world. I am ashamed of myself. The cruelty is unforgivable, the suffering unimaginable. Murad is brutally honest throughout her book. She lays her heart on the page. I cannot fathom that she held anything back. Her fear is palpable. I pray that Murad finds peace and solace. I'm sure the healing process is slow. I hope writing this book was cathartic.

The book looks generally good. I got access to excerpt of this book. I wished to have access to the full book to provide a more deep review.

Nadia brings you into war torn Iraq and the horrors that so many faced. Thousands of men, women and children faced horrors that we cannot imagine. Daily we gripe about our lives, but our trivial issues are nothing compared to the brutality that the Yazidi people faced.
Nadia’s family saw first hand the devastation that a group of militants can create on a community. Men in her community were shot and left for dead in mass graves. Women and girls were placed into slavery to endure unimaginable horrors.
Although the book shares the horrors, it also shows how the human spirit can survive. Nadia was not going to sit by and do nothing. Instead she fought back.
I strongly recommend this as book for most adults to read. It tears your heart apart and opens your eyes. If you didn’t feel for the refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq, by the time she is finished you will be.

ISIS is evil. As evil as the other evils throughout history that have carried out the genocide of an entire people. The thing is...this genocide and enslavement is still going on today. The brutality and atrocity happening in the world right now will horrify you. If you're like me, you'll read it in your comfy house, maybe with a cup of coffee or tea, your kids playing happily in the background. And you will be stunned by the killing and raping of an entire population of innocent people in Iraq and Syria. May the end of this devastation come swiftly and may this be the last one our world will ever see.
https://nadiasinitiative.org/

I was unable to review this book as it got archived before I could download it as I got approved the last day it was available and was unable to download it that day.

A FASCINATING memoir that was also super educational.

Nadia lived a quite life in northern Iraq, with other members of the Yazidi community. A little known religion, Yazidi's are an insular community, who generally keeps to themselves and bothers no one. When ISIS enters their village, they separate men, women and children. The men are slaughtered. Young women of Nadia's age are taken away, to become sex slaves. After being forced to convert to Islam, she is traded by several militants to be repeatedly raped and beaten. Left unattended one day, Nadia miraculously escapes. With the help of a Sunni Muslim family, she is smuggled to safety.

This was a very powerful and moving story. I can't imagine the horrors that Nadia, and other members of the Yazidi community have gone through. I was glad to see a book written from this perspective. It is very brave of Nadia to speak of her experiences, and it is important to bring awareness and to ensure that this does not happen again. Overall, highly recommended.

Gut wrenching and heartbreaking story. I stayed up till the wee hours of the night to know how this story ended.

One of the most painful and heartbreaking stories I have read of late, yet it was beautifully told. My knowledge of the genocide of Yazidis by ISIS was very limited going into this, so it was very eye-opening for me and, I suspect, for many others who read this. The unspeakable horrors of ISIS and how they spread their hate and evil is something I think every American needs to be aware.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

It is an unbelievable shame at what happened to the Yidizi people, and Nadia Murad spells it out in this honest and heartbreaking memoir. The beginning of the book relays the history of the Yidizi people and where they live. She tells readers how she was captured and the atrocities that happened to her, her mother, brothers, sisters, and other family members. It is horrendous to learn how the women were treated by ISIS and I believe the author to be very brave by calling out those who did nothing to help, despite knowing what was going on.

Powerful, poignant, guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes no matter how tough you think you are, and surprisingly well-written. The Last Girl is an extraordinary first-hand account of a brutal genocide of a small religious minority who had no one to protect them from the barbaric horrors of the Islamic State which grew in power and territory for several long years while moral leadership was absent in this world and this cancer grew unabated.

The story - and sadly it is not a story - begins with the Yazidis, a small religious and ethnic group in Western Iraq who lived in small villages in the shadow of Mount Sinjar. Persecuted by Saddam for years, they had hope when Iraq was liberated only to see it fall into chaos several years later. When Isis grew, no one stepped in to protect them and, even their neighbors turned on them, viciously. When Isis finally attacked, thousands fled on foot to the mountain where the terrain was so rough not even food could successfully be airdropped . Those who didn't flee where surrounded and either killed in mass graves or enslaved in slave markets and sold and traded again and again.

And, meanwhile, the entire civilized world could not muster the courage to do something about this evil.

It is a very personal tale of a survivor who lost all hope and journeyed through hell, escaping wounded in spirit, her family broken, and little to back to. You might think the world would become more civilized with each passing year, but barbarism, cruelty, and viciousness still exists wherever it's allowed to spring up.

Nadia is a survivor of genocide from an Iraqi village in Kocho. When ISIS took over Kochi, they made Nadia a sex slave which is common practice. This is her story of the abuses she suffered and how she escaped, becoming an activist. She shares the history and politics of the region as she unflinchingly tells her story.


Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley.