Fundamentally

By Nussaibah Younis
** Publication Date 25 February 2025 **
​4 stars



This book was really fun and enlightening. I love when I can enjoy reading something, but also learn something in the process. 


Nadia is a lecturer at university in London. She decided to take a sabbatical and implement her deradicalization ideas with a division of the UN stationed in Baghdad. Immediately upon arrival she starts to question why on earth she thought it was a good idea. 


Her unit will be responsible for the ISIS ‘brides’ imprisoned in a camp. They are women from both Iraq and other countries, who somehow ended up married to men of ISIS. Nadia feels that with the right training and counseling, they can be repatriated into their own countries. Only the two people on her team seem against the idea, and her boss seems oblivious. Nadia is all alone on this one. Nadia blunders into her task with hilarity and sometimes sadness. Most of these women didn’t realize what they were signing up for, and most would like to go home. 


While Nadia’s concept is noble, the task of implementing it is never going to be an easy one. The middle east is still filled with misogyny, sometimes extreme, and corruption, everyone wants to get paid for their assistance. Nadia latches onto a 19 year old former-ISIS bride who reminds her of herself. That’s when things get really out of hand.


This novel introduced me to so many things that I knew nothing about. What it is like to be Muslim in London. What happened to all the ISIS brides that were recruited. It was a lesson in world culture that I sorely needed. The wonderful thing was Nadia! She managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other even when things got horribly bad. She turned her coworkers into allies. She was tough and soft and funny all at the same time. She grew throughout the novel. 


It’s a good one.