Hilarious and eye opening novel about Nadia, an academic who flees her from her past lover and her overbearing mother to take on a job with the UN in Iraq. Having landed a lecturer spot by writing an article about repatriating ISIS brides, the UN sought her out to implement the program in real life. But it’s not what it seems. Crawling through bureaucratic red tape, the story downright makes you laugh with Nadia’s dry wit and sense of humor.

Is the UN really this dysfunctional or how much is hyperbole, I need to know!!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. Opinions are my own.

This book is a lot. And I mean that in the best, most chaotic, emotionally-drenched, thought-provoking way possible.

Fundamentally introduces us to Nadia—emotionally raw, intellectually sharp, and spiraling from a breakup that blurs the lines between platonic and romantic. In a move that feels both brave and reckless, she takes a sabbatical to Iraq with the goal of helping British ISIS wives return home. It's a morally thorny mission, one that the UN system seems to be pretending to support while doing the opposite. Nadia, already grappling with imposter syndrome and loneliness, becomes deeply entangled with one woman in particular—Sara, a British ISIS wife whose story tugs on something primal in Nadia. What follows is a descent into emotional entanglement, desperation, and a total unravelling of Nadia’s sense of right, wrong, and everything in between.

This book doesn’t try to tie things up neatly. The relationships are fraught and painfully real. The characters are maddening, sympathetic, and deeply layered. Nadia’s voice—dry, biting, British—narrates the madness with a kind of deadpan wit that makes the chaos all the more gripping.

Younis writes like an academic with a soul—analytical, yes, but also deeply emotive. The story feels urgent and important, but also deeply personal. And while some moments felt so uncomfortably messy I wanted to look away, I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

This is not a book for passive reading. It's one that deserves reflection, discussion, maybe even a second read. It asks big questions about identity, loyalty, trauma, and the systems that fail us—and it never pretends to have all the answers.

Pure, brilliant chaos. And it kind of broke my heart.

“Your mother doesn’t want you, the love of your life doesn’t want you, well… how about a random failed state? Is it possible you belong here?”

Nadia, after her first queer heartbreak, decides to work for a possibly morally-corrupt UN program attempting to deradicalize ISIS brides. She moves to Iraq. She connects with a funny, audacious young girl named Sara, who she sees her younger self in. Nadia becomes dedicated to getting Sara out of the camp and reunited with her young daughter, no matter the cost or consequences. This leads to her making some very, very fucked-up and bad decisions and totally spiraling. This book is focused on radicalization, mommy issues, and faith and its difference sub-sects. Can you save someone who doesn’t realize they’re in danger from the people they believe in?

Fundamentally is a witty, laugh-out-loud story that taps all the emotions. This thought-provoking story grips you from the beginning and you won’t be able to put it down. This book of friendship and faith is original and important. I highly recommend Fundamentally! I look forward to reading Nussaibah Younis’s next book.

This was a darkly comedic, emotional roller coaster. Our main character is struggling to find her path after abandoning her religious upbringing. Through flashbacks, we see her struggle through years of confusion and complicated relationships, only to end up working on a special project for the UN. The novel dealt with the complexities of religious fundamentalism from multiple perspectives, creating empathetic points of view, likely enhanced by the authors expertise on the subject. The pacing was very well done, especially for a debut novel. It is difficult for me to recommend, given the subject matter, however if you are intrigued by the novel’s premise, I would encourage you to give the novel a chance.

Nadia is an adjunct Professor who teaches criminology. When a full time position opens up she is considered for the job. The problem is that she has not published any articles, a consideration in the school’s selection. She scrambles for a subject until a conversation with her mother catches her attention. They had been invited to a wedding of someone whose first wife had run off to Syria. Nadia wrote her article on the deradicalization of women who had become Isis brides. The article went viral and Nadia was approached to lead a program for the UN in Iraq. It comes at a time when her current relationship has ended so off she goes. She is totally unprepared for the heat, the red tape, her supervisor’s lack of direction and the animosity of one of her staff members. This is an experimental program and its’ continuation depends on her success. Nussaibah Younis walks a fine line between humor and the more serious subjects of religion and terrorism. Nadia is sassy and often annoying. There is a big difference between the academic world that she is used to and the practical application of her ideas and she is totally unprepared. Younis uses her own background working in Iraq to lend an authenticity to her story and while there are inaccuracies, which she explains in her ending notes, it does give you an idea of what Nadia faced. I would like to thank NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for providing his book.

This book kept me on my toes! Watching Nadia go from unsure and heartbroken to her obsession with helping Sara despite almost everyone at her job telling her it was a bad idea was tough to read at times, but ultimately rewarding and heartwarming.

There were so many moments where I thought that this would be where everything went very wrong, but I was happily surprised when things worked out. I thought Younis’s storytelling was compelling and wonderfully expressive. I loved to see Nadia’s growth through the book

Funny and serious - gets to some deep issues without being preachy. Unlike anything else I've read recently. Very good. Hard to describe because the content matter does not seem like it would go with "comedic" but it's truly hilarious and simultaneously deep and thoughtful.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this novel. I could not get into this story and did not finish.

4

Setting: Iraq
Rep: queer British Asian protagonist; British Asian author

I really enjoyed this book, especially the voice of the protagonist. I really felt for her and I really liked the nuanced portrayal of Sara. Surprisingly amusing too for a book about ISIS brides!

Our main character, Nadia, is out of her depth. She accepted a job with the UN to deradicalize ISIS brides but doesn’t know how to navigate the system or connect with those she’s trying to help. Until she meets Sara, a teen from Britain.

While there’s definitely a storyline this book really just killed my impostor syndrome given how sh*t all the high up officials were at their job.

I am unfamiliar with how UN programs work, so I found this glimpse behind the bureaucracy, although fictional, very interesting. The book itself is a quick read, funny, while still touching on how dark UN work can be. There were so many different personalities in this book, and it was fun to see Nadia try to navigate this while making the impact she was hoping for. I also knew literally nothing about ISIS brides, so it was really interesting to see that perspective.

That being said, Nadia is...an irritating character at times. She's extremely self righteous and impulsive, although she is sometimes dead-on in her assessment of things. I couldn't really ever understand why she liked Sara so much, other than she saw herself in her, and some of the plot points towards the end seemed pretty far-fetched. Overall, I enjoyed this a lot and would look forward to reading another novel from Younis.

In this story Nadia's personal life has blown up so when a job offer that will take her to Iraq to work with the UN comes her way she jumps on it. Her job is to create a program to help get ISIS brides back repatriated to their home countries or towns. She becomes very attached to one of the women in the camp and things get a little crazy from there.


I enjoyed getting a look behind the curtain of how things would work in a refugee camp and the array of people that are connected to it. Parts of the book were hilarious and other parts broke my heart. You don't realize how strong people can be until they are left with no other choice. I look forward to more books by Nussaibah Younis.

I truly don't even know where to start. From the first paragraph I laughed out loud and knew that I would love this book. This is a very different topic than anything I've ever read, and it was so neat to me that the author, Nussaibah Younis, is an expert in peace building and spent 10 years working in Iraq. While this is a work of fiction, I felt like I was learning so much about Muslim culture, how extremism can be so easy to fall into, and Iraq in general. The main character, Nadia, has SO much heart and compassion and often does the wrong thing truly believing it's the right one. She becomes incredibly close to Sara, an ex-ISIS bride and promises her a way to repatriate back into Europe. The plan does not go smoothly, and they end up doing many illegal things. I love the exploration of self, Nadia really feeling whole in who she is, the found family as well as forgiveness in her own family. This is by far one of the best books I've read this year. I would HIGHLY recommend this. Thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for this ARC.

It’s kind of weird to call this book humor but I laughed out loud multiple times reading this. It felt almost like a satire except I know this is exactly how NGOs and UN organizations have to operate. It’s so much bureaucracy and waste and roadblocks because someone with more power has different ideas than the ones actually doing the work. And also at the end of the day, passion doesn’t mean good decisions. It was hard to root for any of the characters because they were all pretty hard to like but I still wanted a peaceful ending for them all.

"For the third time in my adult life, I was trying to create a home on hostile terrain. Your mother doesn't want you, the love of your life doesn't want you, well ... how about a random failed state? Is it possible you belong here?"

Dr. Nussaibah Younis' debut novel Fundamentally offers a brilliant and truly hilarious account of a well-meaning but naive British academic who lands a job at a UN agency working to "de-radicalize" former ISIS brides in Iraq in order to repatriate them to their home countries. Dr. Nadia Amin is a criminologist who has finally found success in her career following the publication of a buzzy article about de-radicalization and a new position as a lecturer, but when her long-term friend/lover ends their decade-long relationship, Nadia decides to take a sabbatical and go off to the Middle East to put her theories into action.

Life in Iraq introduces Nadia to the impenetrable bureaucracy (and shocking corruption) involved in international aid work and a ridiculous set of colleagues, and her work with the ISIS brides forces her to confront the open wounds from her estrangement from her own mother and her broken heart. Nadia bonds with Sara, a young woman in the de-radicalization program originally from East London, who at 19 years old has already been married three times. Nothing in this book is cut and dry—the motivations of the aid workers and the ISIS brides are all suspect, but Younis covers the complexity with clear knowledge from her years of work in the region and a strong irreverent voice that shines throughout.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend for readers who enjoy dark humor, British humor, satire, and diverse stories with LGBTQ and Muslim representation. Fundamentally might not be for everyone, but this was a great read for me!

I loved the way the author mixes such a serious topic with humor and levity so that the story doesn't feel too heavy.

My undergraduate degree is in International Relations and I've taken a few classes in grad school about working in humanitarian spaces so I was super intrigued by the premise of "Fundamentally". It did not disappoint. "Fundamentally" was laugh out loud funny while also providing the reader with lots to think about concerning saviorism, internationalism, and how we generally approach peace and aid work as a society.

Generally, I'm not a huge fan of the "disaster woman" trope (where everything seems to always go wrong for the main character). However, I couldn't help myself but root for Nadia. While she is absolutely impulsive and can be a tad self-centered, I always felt like her heart was in the right place and she generally approached her work in a way that was compassionate and (somewhat) self-aware. While this was a humorous and satirical novel, I thought it approached the many of its more sensitive topics with care.

So many moments of "Fundamentally" were so funny. Younis did such an apt job of capturing that kinds of characters you encounter when working on humanitarian and diplomacy issues. She also cleverly and humorously portrayed some of the contradictions that exist in this work.

I think it will be important for readers to view this book as what it is: satire. While a lot of beats and moments may ring true, this is ultimately a novel meant to entertain and gently poke fun, not something intended to educated or accurately describe aid work. I think it was overall very successful at what it set out to do. Reading this book, in the best way, felt like looking at a car crash in slow motion. You basically know what is going to happen, but you just can't look away.

4 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Tiny Reparations Books for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Imagine getting the opportunity of a lifetime and it not being what you expected at all. Deradicalizing ISIS brides is no joke. Through triumphs and disasters an amazing story evolved. One for the grandkids. Nussaibah’s writing is both confident and punchy. Everything she wrote was supported in some way during the book. I’m so happy I got to read this book. It made me feel compassion for the women that get trapped in situations like these and brought awareness and perspective to a matter that doesn’t get much attention. I particularly loved the ease in her sexual encounters and I loved the determination of the characters throughout the story.

I'm of two minds with this book. While I did enjoy reading about the program set up by the UN agency, the relationship between Nadia and Sara, and Nadia's internal struggles, the author seemed to fall back on a lot of lazy tropes. Some of the characters seemed to be complete caricatures and left me wondering if the author had ever actually met someone from California. I'm saying this as someone who has lived in the Middle East, has met a few reverts, and has never found them to be so unserious and dismissive of a religion they were embracing. Overall though, Sara's story had me glued to the pages and I would have loved to have heard from more of the women in the camp.