Thank you to Tiny Reparations Books and NetGalley for my ARC copy! This review contains my personal thoughts and opinions.

This book had a bit of a slow start for me, but once I hit the second half, I was a lot more engaged. Fundamentally sheds light on an important and eye-opening story—one I might not have encountered otherwise. Even with its serious subject matter, the humor woven throughout made it an enjoyable read. Overall, I really liked it and would recommend it to anyone looking for a thought-provoking yet entertaining book!

Fundamentally is different than any book I've ever read. Nadia is a (I think Pakistani-British) professor in London, who has done some controversial writing on deradicalizing ISIS brides, when the UN hires her to run a program in Iraq. After a breakup, Nadia takes the job, and Iraq seems more about bureaucracy and incompetence than any actual counseling. She becomes somewhat obsessed with one of the brides, who she sees herself in and escapes with her - this is in a flash forward so not a spoiler.. Such an original idea for a book, and what an interesting cast of characters.

I was interested to read Fundamentally because I’ve read nothing on ISIS or deradicalization, and because I have been seeing the eye-catching cover everywhere.

Nadia is working for the UN in Iraq. After narrowly escaping radicalization in her youth, Nadia is determined to help deprogram and save other young women who were victim of that fate. With unflagging idealism, Nadia coordinates with other UN programs to get her deradicalization program up and running. At the refugee camp, Nadia meets Sara. Sara reminds Nadia of herself as an adolescent. Nadia immediately becomes obsessed with helping Sara. Single-mindedly so.

Also of note, Nadia is bisexual and has a strained relationship with both Islam and her family. Nadia rebels against her religion with drinking, drugs, sex, and bucking religious customs like wearing a head cover.

Overall, I liked this book. I struggled a bit in the beginning with some of the British slang, finding the conversation hard to follow. Fundamentally showcased some parts of the world I know little about, with some of the story about Nadia feeling unbelievable. I really wanted to smack her back into reality in certain moments. I didn’t love it, but I’m glad I read it and I do recommend it. 4 stars. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I can potentially imagine a novel that successfully married comedy to the story of rehabilitating ISIS war brides, but unfortunately Fundamentally is not that book. I picked this one up because of the premise (Dr. Nadia Amin leaves behind a dead-end life in London to work for the UN and befriends one of the aforementioned brides, Sara) and because of the author’s own expertise working in this sphere.

There were parts of the novel that I enjoyed, including some genuinely funny and enraging moments skewering the corruption and bureaucracy the heroine faces. However, the book never quite manages to balance the real and horrific seriousness of these women’s experiences with the kind of zany, gals on an adventure tone of the friendship between Nadia and Sara. Additionally, Nadia’s dirtbag tendencies and her ill-timed sexcapades really clashed with the darker tone of the book. There’s a sentence where Nadia says that her dreams all night were haunted by memories of her ex’s great breasts and images of the war brides being bombed, and the weird juxtaposition of that sentence sums up the weirdness of the novel. I’m sad to say that this one didn’t work for me.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

Despite its dire subject matter (rehabilitating and repatriating ISIS brides) this novel manages to be both funny and warm. From the ludicrous inefficiencies of international bureaucracy to the byzantine courtly dance of interagency diplomacy, you can tell Younis has up close, personal experience in the world of NGOs. Nadia isn't quite sure how she got to Iraq. Sure, she published a paper about the feasibility of deradicalizing women who left their home countries to join ISIS that had the UN come calling, but culture shock and the end of a one-sided relationship have her reeling right from the start. When she meets a women in the camp who is still a teenager, she feels a kinship she can't ignore. She goes above and beyond for Sara, often at the expense of other women in her care. When the time comes to execute a daring plan, Nadia isn't sure what she's saving Sara from, or if she is even interested in being saved. This book asks interesting questions about what we think we are doing when we help, and how repercussions from those actions can manifest in ways we could never have expected.

this book was really funny and readable, but unfortunately the very real sociopolitical situation at its heart never felt like a laughing matter to me. i wanted it to take this topic more seriously, especially since the author is so knowledgeable about it, but instead it was left by the wayside by the end.

This was a killer debut novel. I knew I was excited for this book, but I didn’t know it was going to end up being in my favorites category. Thank you to NetGalley for the copy!

This novel follows Nadia, a woman who has accepted a job to create a program that focuses on rehabilitating ISIS women in Iraq. There, she navigates lots of political red tape, all while dealing with her estranged relationship with her mother, the end of a ten year romantic relationship, and forming a special connection with one of the ISIS women in the camp.

This book kept me engaged from page one. It was funny and heartwarming in equal measure. Nadia was a lovably flawed character and I almost didn’t want her story to end. The writing style was sharp and witty, and I truly can’t wait to see what this author does next.

A clever, thoughtful novel that occasionally struggled to balance humor with the heaviness of its subject material. The author is clearly brilliant and incredibly knowledgeable, which lent strong detail and visuals to the story. I LOVED the character of Sara, but wasn't totally sold on Nadia as the protagonist. The story is incredibly self-aware and thoughtful in depicting a complicated topic, and does a good job on reflecting of queerness & feminism as they relate to colonization and White supremacy, among other things.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tiny Reparations Books for the digital ARC.

This was a FANTASTIC book. There's many ways to move on after a break up, but moving across the globe might be the most interesting!

I loved the writing , the characters, and the story. Nussaibah effortlessly weaves humor within such a serious topic. I was entertained and learned so much in the meantime! Thank you, NetGalley.

There are many ways to deal with a breakup—moving far away, hooking up with strangers, that sort of thing. Dr. Nadia Amin’s reaction to breaking up with the woman she thought was the love of her life by taking a job with the United Nations setting up a program to deradicalize women who, for a variety of reasons, ended up married to ISIS members. (This surprising change also involves moving very far away and hooking up with people she barely knows.) Nussaibah Younis’s novel, Fundamentally, is a hell of a ride.

Nadia is filled with regrets as soon as she arrives in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Before her breakup with her long-term girlfriend, Nadia wrote a paper theorizing about a way to help women who willingly joined ISIS return to their former homes as a way of creating enough of an academic splash to maybe win a permanent job at University College London. She never expected that paper to turn into a job offer from the United Nations. And yet, there she is, sweating in the Iraqi sun and wondering how the hell she is supposed to turn that paper into a reality. The first problem is that Nadia doesn’t have any relevant experience; she’s an academic, not a social or aid worker. The second problem is that the people she is supposed to work for are deeply jaded from years of fighting bureaucracy and corruption. It’s all a farce.

In spite of a deck stacked very much against her, Nadia finds enough gumption to badger the necessary permissions to get a team out to a camp filled with women who spent years in ISIS. Some of these women were groomed and tricked into joining. Others were kidnapped from areas ISIS overran. A few joined of her own accord. After ISIS was beaten into submission, these women became effectively homeless. No one wants to take them back. Western countries don’t want their citizens back because of their association with violent terrorism. The women taken from Iraq aren’t wanted back in their hometowns because they carry the taint of multiple marriages (even if the woman in question wasn’t a willing participant).

One of the women, a young British woman named Sara, makes a deep impression on Nadia with her brash London banter. In Sara, Nadia sees what might have happened to herself if she’d followed a different path in life. A lot of what follows (apart from the satirical elements with the UN and local politicians) is clearly an effort by Nadia to deal in all the wrong ways: by trying to “rescue” Sara, by throwing all protocols out the window, and by never considering that she might need some serious therapy.

There are some parts of Fundamentally that strained my credulity. Nadia is such a complex character that it was hard for me to reconcile her successes with her program with her occasional emotional paralysis. I didn’t always buy the moments when Nadia would suddenly find the fortitude to bend others to her will. In spite of these moments, I was fascinated by the tale Younis spins and the question of how one is supposed to do even a bit of good in impossible situations.

Fundamentally, a debut novel by Nussaibah Younisl, takes a look at the nature of international aid. Nadia, an academic, is working in Iraq with the United Nations. Nadia challenges the process of rehabilitating ISIS women. In time, her work becomes contentious.
This story covers sensitive themes such as terrorism, religion, and women’s right.

I always love a novel where I learn a lot and laugh a lot too.

This is an excellent debut novel about good intentions with potentially disastrous consequences, the ethics of “saving” someone, and just how far we’ll run to get away from ourselves.

The plot here is excellent and I loved how much humor Younis brought to a subject that is, at its core, a very sad one. She has a deft touch with difficult subject matter, and shows a fine hand at deploying humor to diffuse difficult material without detracting from the significance of it.

I loved Nadia (another fictional character who I wish I could hang out with), and appreciated very much how her worldview and and experiences sent her into a potentially dangerous situation in which she makes a series of well-intended but potentially even more dangerous decisions.

Obviously I wont go into the details, but I wondered a lot about how realistic the ending was. Ultimately and especially after reading the authors note, I felt that it was at least plausible (a relief, as I felt very invested in this outcome). Younis explains her professional background in the authors note, and her evident expertise only enhanced how I felt about this well-written, compelling story.

I'm so grateful to have been given an e-ARC of this wickedly hilarious and thought-provoking book. It follows Dr. Nadia Amin, fresh off of her first big queer breakup and newly transplanted into a leadership role rehabilitating ISIS-affiliated women living in refugee camps in Iraq.

This is simultaneously a refreshing and searingly gripping perspective, and also something that has made me giggle page after page. It's also a really humanizing portrayal of the very human reasons at the core of how people can get radicalized into the things we vilify. I can say with confidence that it’s both one of the most fascinating and also the funniest book I‘ll read this year. Younis’s perspective is such a breath of fresh air, and I don’t want reading this book to end.

I'm so glad that I'm getting to read this book, and truly appreciate getting to opportunity to check it out early! Thank you so much to Penguin books and Nussaibah Younis!

In Younis' debut novel, narrator Nadia has embarked on a high stakes position with the UN. Rehabilitating ISIS brides. In Iraq. She's an academic from East London whose writing on the subject has gotten her the job, and to say that she's not prepared for the challenge is putting it lightly.

Nadia's still reeling from getting dumped and she has a contentious relationship with her devout mother. She's not in the best mindset to take on the new role. She needs to make an impression to get her program off the ground and is woefully clueless about how to get things done.

A serious subject with global ramifications, this novel succeeds because Younis makes it accessible. Nadia may be a mess and unqualified, but she's endearing and earnest. And a raunchy potty mouth who likes a cocktail, which seems completely inappropriate, but those UN workers in Iraq need to blow off steam!

So there's a good deal of of levity woven into the seriousness, and it's all grounded in Younis' background as an academic, from London, who "advised the Iraqi government on the rehabilitation and reintegration of women perceived to be affiliated with ISIS" per the author's note. The authenticity is palpable.

My thanks to NetGalley and Tiny Reparations Books for the digital ARC. (pub date 2/25/2025)

The book was advertised as funny and yet it was still funnier than I was expecting. I love that it was blurbed by Dolly Alderton, because it employed a similar brand of her characteristic wit—not only did Nussaibah go for the obvious jokes, but she layered in some much more complex humor, too. The way she wrote accents was equally good; the characters sprang right off the page. I also found the setting to be unique—a UN camp in Baghdad serving nothing but chaos to a beleaguered group of ISIS brides, (which the author handled with expertise, and recognized the areas in which she diverged from reality in an author's note at the end).

As I mentioned to a friend upon finishing, I'm not sure whether a deeper understanding of the Middle East will help or harm some of the points and jokes she was trying to make. Because the intersection of extremism, faith and comedy is an area that I haven't deeply explored, I'll keep my recommendations to the tone of her writing, which feels similar to Alexandra Chang, Dolly, Rufi Thorpe (her later work, at least) and possibly Sloane Crosley.

Thank you to Tiny Reparations & Dutton for the opportunity to read and review!

I am going to be honest, and I always am, it took me a minute to figure out the style and get used to what I was reading. About aid workers in Iraq attempting to "deradicalize" ISIS brides - women who, either unwillingly or willingly but informedly, married ISIS fighters. The main character telling us this story is Nadia, a British woman with a changing perspective on faith and love and herself. Nadia is... a mess. She's very flawed and this book is a bit satirical and outlandish, which took me a minute to get used to on this topic. But then it works. You see the silliness of all the people going in to "help" the women, but really all just self congratulating or lining pockets or really just not seeing the women and what they need, including Nadia. She gets set on helping an ISIS bride, a 19 year old British Asian girl who left London to marry someone who seemed nice online when she was 16. It was a very interesting perspective on an area I haven't thought much about. The author worked in foreign aid work and you can tell she has that inside knowledge, and the western Muslim of Asian parents perspective that I related to.

Very striking debut and can't wait for more!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a phenomenal debut! This book was definitely out of the norm for me but I'm trying to read more diversely. This book is one that I am so glad I picked up. Younis is such a phenomenal writer and as a reader, you can tell she is already forming her own writing style that can be enjoyed by many. Loved this book!

Dr. Nadia Amin has arrived in Baghdad to implement a deradicalization program for ISIS brides. She had thought that she could evade her pain from a broken romance by fleeing her home in London: “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?”

Nadia is in way above her head. She is an “infant lecturer” in criminology who had written a single published paper proposing techniques for the deradicalization of ISIS brides. She had “never met an ISIS woman, knew nothing about Iraq, couldn’t navigate [her] way around the compound, let alone the UN system.” Her subordinates, Sherri Anderson, the psychosocial support specialist, considers the proposed program to be unethical and problematic, and Pierre, the entitled son of an ambassador, spends his time scrolling on Grindr.

Nadia decides to visit the camp with her team, and she is immediately drawn to Sara, a young idealist woman from East London who had rebelled against her parents and who reminded Nadia of her teenage self. Nadia is determined to get Sara home, but then Sara reveals a secret to Nadia and their lives become more complicated than they could have imagined.

The book addresses serious subjects — the ISIS bride debate and the role of foreign aid — but is chockfull of witty dialogue and laugh-out-loud moments. A darkly comic novel that is as funny as it is fascinating. Thank you Isabel DaSilva at Tiny Reparations Books and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this wickedly comic debut.

Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I never expected to enjoy a book that focused on politics, humanitarian issues, and religion to be so entertaining. And yet here we are - I’m about to write a review about a funny story about ISIS brides.

This one was nuanced, sensitive, and thought-provoking. It tackled tough subjects like deradicalization, deep-rooted ideologies both personally and institutionally, and ethical and moral dilemmas. The humor was spot on, and I loved the main character’s voice and wit. While I think the pacing was off a bit (the middle lagged and the ending felt a bit rushed), this book completely worked for me.

I also really appreciated the author’s note at the end that gave more context to the story. I love when an author’s note adds additional layers and this one delivered.

Fans of contemporary literature, satirical stories that explore long held ideologies, and humor sprinkled in with serious subjects, this one checks all the boxes.