The Last Girl

September 15, 2017
A raw, terrifying account of religious genocide and life in captivity under the Islamic State by a young Yazidi woman who survived it.Born and raised in Kocho, Iraq, Murad grew up hearing about the many genocides her people faced throughout history, but she never imagined she would witness one herself. She enjoyed a quiet childhood in her small farming village, surrounded by a large, loving extended family and the tightknit Yazidi community. But just outside the town limits, danger lingered as Daesh, otherwise known as the Islamic State, began to take control of northern Iraq. Murad was 21 years old when, in August 2014, IS militants laid siege to Kocho and irreparably changed the lives of everyone in the town. After their village leader announced that his people refused to convert to Islam despite threats of violence and death, Kocho's men were rounded up, shot, and buried in mass graves while their mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and young sons watched from a schoolhouse window before being transported to an even grimmer fate. Older women, such as Murad's mother, were later murdered, young boys were forced into IS, and the girls and younger women like the author were sold into the IS slave trade, where they were subjected to a daily routine of servitude, violence, and rape. Held captive by a group of particularly brutal militants, Murad attempted to flee once before she was able to escape with the help of one remarkable family willing to risk their lives to save hers. With vivid detail and genuine, heartbreaking emotion, the author lays bare not only her unimaginable tragedy, but also the tragedies of an entire people whose plight is largely ignored by the rest of the world. Human rights lawyer and activist Amal Clooney provides the foreword. A devastating yet ultimately inspiring memoir that doubles as an urgent call to action.

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Starred review from October 23, 2017
Human rights activist Murad recounts her captivity in Iraq as a sabiya, or sex slave, held by ISIS in this brilliant and intense memoir. Murad and her entire Yazidi village in Kocho were kidnapped by members of ISIS on August 3, 2014. Yazidis are a Kurdish religious minority, traditionally farmers who settled in the outskirts of cities, Murad lived outside of Mosul, which was also captured by ISIS militants in 2014. In the early morning of August 3rd, ISIS rounded up Murad’s village, killed the men, and kidnapped the women. The young women and girls were separated from their mothers and trafficked as sex slaves for ISIS, and Murad was forced to convert to Islam by her vicious captor Haji Salman. Sabiyas are used by ISIS to recruit more ISIS militants. Murad writes, “Every Sabiya has a story like mine. You can’t imagine the atrocities ISIS is capable of until you hear about them from your sisters and cousins, your neighbors and your schoolmates.... The men were all the same: they were all terrorists who thought it was their right to hurt us.” Murad miraculously managed to escape her captivity and reunite with what remained of her family to become a refugee in Kurdistan. She is now an advocate who speaks out for protection and justice to be restored to all the women kidnapped, trafficked, and enslaved by ISIS. This book is a clear-eyed account of ISIS’s cruelty and the devastation caused by the war in Iraq. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

November 1, 2017

In 2014, ISIS swept through Iraq, bringing death and destruction to the Yazidis people, a Kurdish religious minority. In a matter of days, more than 10,000 people were killed while countless women were forced into sex slavery and conversion to Islam. Murad, a human rights activist and Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking of the United Nations, tells her story to help bring those responsible to justice, with the hope that education, compassion, and activism make her the last woman to have this experience. She was only 21 when Islamic State militants executed the men and older women in her village, taking her and others to Mosul to become sabaya or slaves. Continually beaten and raped, she ran at her first opportunity and by chance found the home of a Sunni Muslim family who risked their lives to smuggle her to safety. VERDICT Murad provides a rare glimpse into the rich culture of the Yazidi. Her memoir is powerful and heart-breaking and will inspire the world to action.--Heidi Uphoff, Sandia National Laboratories, NM

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2017
Captured by ISIS, held as a sex slave to be repeatedly raped and beaten, Murad felt powerless. But after she escaped and began telling the world what she had experienced, she found she had a powerful weapon to wield against her tormentorsher story. As she eloquently recounts in this powerful memoir, she was a victim of the genocide of the Yazidi community in Iraq. When her village was taken over by ISIS, the terrorists shot the men and forced some of the women, including 21-year-old Murad, to become their slaves. The details of her imprisonment are chilling, such as the guard who delicately placed his glasses on the table before violently raping her, and reveal a systematic campaign by the ISIS terrorists to eradicate the humanity of their captives. Now the first UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, Murad has written a heartbreaking elegy to a lost community and a resounding call for action against the atrocities being committed by ISIS.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)