Comment

The Last Girl

My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
Apr 23, 2018kyriana rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
This book was exceptionally well-written (Nadia mentions near the beginning that English was not her strongest subject in school), but the story is told in a somewhat confusing manner. The first third of the book covers Nadia's life before ISIS arrives in her village. The stories she shares from her life before are told out of sequence; she shares memories of her childhood and her home, and they are not told in chronological order. I understand that that makes a story more interesting, but often there was no sense of time given to help order the events of her life, so I was very confused at times, trying to figure out where in the sequence of her life an event or series of events took place. Also, often names were dropped in without any context whatsoever, and I struggled to understand the relationship between Nadia and that person. Katherine, her favorite niece, is mentioned multiple times throughout the book; but it isn't explained until the third section of the novel that Katherine is Nadia's niece, the daughter of Nadia's eldest brother, who is the leader of their family. The sentence and paragraph structure is very well-written, precise, and detailed, but the actual story structure was not the greatest. Aside from that, the book was absolutely heart-wrenching to read. Nadia had a simple but happy life before ISIS arrived in her home town, and it is so hard to read about her facing struggles she never dreamed she would have to experience. The details of her capture, enslavement, and escape are numbingly fascinating, and I couldn't read the details of her escape quickly enough. I wish there had been more details about her life after escape (again, events began to be told out of order and it was hard to follow the sequence of events), namely about her time with Yazda, the organization to help free other sabayya and aid Yazidis in need.