The Last Girl
My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
-
-
4.7 • 304 Ratings
-
-
- $13.99
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE • In this “courageous” (The Washington Post) memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story.
Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon.
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.
Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety.
Today, Nadia's story—as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi—has forced the world to pay attention to an ongoing genocide. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Nadia Murad’s powerfully intimate story of being held captive by the Islamic State left us shaken. Kidnapped at age 21 by ISIS fighters, the young Iraqi woman details the assaults, torture, and repeated rapes she experienced with an unflinching sense of urgency. The Last Girl bears testament to Murad’s indomitable spirit—the most impassioned part of the book follows her escape and her transformation from the survivor of a genocidal atrocity to an outspoken, Nobel Peace Prize–winning activist against sexual violence.
Customer Reviews
Great
Good read and really eye opening.
This should be an Everybody Reads book
Everyone should read this book to understand the crimes against humanity and recognize it is our responsibility to help these people.
A powerful true story of survival
In what is the truly twisted and sinister minds of the terrorist group ISIS the Yazidi people of Iraq are systematically studied and determined as subhuman infidels. The population of men and older women are murdered and left in mass graves. Young boys are kidnapped and used to fight and die for ISIS, often sacrificed as suicide bombers. The Yazidi young women and girls are used as sex slaves to be sold, bartered, raped and tortured at the whim of ISIS. This story shows the strength of a young women determined to get free. Her story is different as she not only seeks justice for these crimes, but justice for her country of Iraq. She doesn't run away from the people who stood by and watched this occur. Nadia loves her country and she hopes to bring about a change that restores what other countries see as a broken Iraq. Nadia's Iraq is beautiful with loving people who deserve a better future. An added plus is the touching foreword written by Amal Clooney, a respected lawyer and longtime advocate for women's rights. Nadia's story is one shared throughout the world by women. No country can claim otherwise and yet governments do nothing until shamed to fight for women and girls long kept at the bottom of the world's priority list!