The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State

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After ISIS arrived, many Christians said that soon there would not be a single one of them left in all Iraq. When ISIS came to Kocho, though, I felt envy for the Christians. In their villages, they had been warned that ISIS was coming. Because, according to ISIS, they were “people of the book” and not kuffar like us, they had been able to take their children, their daughters, to safety in Kurdistan, and, in Syria, some had been able to pay a fine rather than convert. Even those who had been expelled from Mosul without anything at least had been spared enslavement. Yazidis had not been given the same chance." 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 Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State is an autobiographical book by Nadia Murad in which she describes how she was captured and enslaved by the Islamic State during the Second Iraqi Civil War. The book eventually led to the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Murad. Becoming entangled in a secret society that worships all things horror, she starts to feel like she’s where she belongs. The members welcomed her into the group and from there she became part of the team.

I always knew the Islamic State (ISIS) was committing atrocities around the world, but never knew how much.

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Even the people whom ISIS hadn’t managed to kill had lost their lives — an entire generation of lost Yazidis like my brothers and me, walking around in the world with nothing in our hearts but the memory of our family and nothing in our heads but bringing ISIS to justice.

All in all, I LOVED The Last Girl. From the beginning I was hooked and I just wanted to jump in and be part of the story. This is a most powerful narrative of a young Yazidi woman in Iraq whose family was forced out of their home by ISIS. Her brothers were murdered in a ditch. The younger women were forced into sexual slavery – older women, like her mother, were killed.Going into the book I knew it would be something I would enjoy as the synopsis grabbed my attention. But, I had no idea I’d love it as much as I have. I found myself getting attached to characters and getting lost in the thrill of it all. A truly wonderful read that I wasn’t expecting. In literacy or drama, children can hot seat and discuss the dialogue scenes and situations in the story. Nadia Murad and her family lived in false hope that ISIS would leave their poor little village alone. They were not prepared for the extermination of all the men, the kidnapping of the boys trained to be human shields in the fundamentalist war. The girls and women are passed around and treated like sex slaves and assaulted physically, emotionally and sexually over and over and over again. Nadia Murad goes into detail about her time in captivity and her escape and finally into her life's work as a human rights activist and raising awareness of the recent genocide of the Yazidi people. Tal vez para nosotros tan alejados, cultural y espacialmente, todo esto nos resulte increíble, mas una ficción que la realidad, sin embargo y lamentablemente para muchas personas esta es su terrible realidad. Es indignante, es indescriptible y genera tanta violencia mientra lo estas leyendo, que se hace necesario que nos paremos a pensar para no terminar siendo (aunque sea con el pensamiento) parecido a eso que nos esta causando tanto asco y horror. Todo lo que se cuenta en este libro es terrible.

Why do you feel so strongly that it’s critical to fight ISIS not only on the battlefield, but in the courtroom? Nadia’s story takes an ongoing conflict happening somewhere else in the world, cuts past the political environment to give you a bleak picture of the depths humanity can sink to. It was with a heavy heart I closed the book and sat it on my bedside table. Sitting on my bed staring at the wall, I sighed. ISIS idea of 'morality' stinks, not just this sex slave thing, but the Christian and Yazidi thing too. I cannot understand why anyone would support such a corrupt and murderous regime, especially women.Thanks to the publishers for granting me access to this via NetGalley prior to its scheduled April 2021 release. 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. 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.

I don't understand how ISIS can use Yazidi women they capture as sex slaves when although their ISIS interpretation of the Q'uran says that unbeliever (kuffar) women can be used as such, but not Muslim ones, and they forcibly convert them first. If they are converted to Islam, how can they be called 'sabiya' (sex slaves) and raped and sold by many men, sometimes repeatedly in a day? Pulling elaborate pranks and making a name for themselves, the Mary Shelley Club is infamous in its own right, and Rachel is a part of it. On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia’s brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade.Ms. Murad -thank you for sharing your pain, your narrative and letting the rest of the world know what is happening to your nation and faith. She was born in the Yazidi community in Kocho, Iraq. August 15 was the day when India gained independence from British rule. Sadly it is a similar August 15 where Nadia lost all her independence when the Islamic State militants caught her. She was twenty-one years old then. I recommend reading this book. Gentle reader, please please please pay attention. Politics threatens to drown out this important story. Do not let that happen. Get this book and talk about it. Those supporting the #metoo campaign in particular need to read 'The Last Girl'. Nadia Murad - lost her mother and 6 brothers - was an Isis sex slave - she escaped years of living hell in 2015