Fundamentally

Starred review from January 1, 2025
Younis, an expert on contemporary Iraq, has produced a wondrous debut novel. Nadia, raised devoutly Muslim but no longer a believer, is a lecturer in London with a broken heart. Based on her journal article about rehabilitating ISIS brides, she is offered a position with the UN in Iraq and, desperate to get out of London, naively accepts. In Iraq, she finds a ragtag group--an English lummox who quotes Lawrence of Arabia, a Grindr-obsessed French son of diplomats, and Sara, a young British girl who became an ISIS bride. Nadia instantly warms to her, and their repartee is often laugh-out loud funny. As Nadia tries to implement her rehabilitation program and get Sara out of Iraq, she is confronted with the inefficiencies, corruption, and idiocy of global aid and diplomatic systems. Nadia's acerbic voice is a joy, her brilliant insults are like those found in the TV show Veep, and her honesty is like that in Otessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018). Younis' glorious satire is shot through with emotional heft, and the final section will move even the hardest of hearts. A vital, warm, and hilarious story from a brilliant new author that is deeply thoughtful about the issues Iraq faces in the twenty-first century.

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February 1, 2025
A comic novel about a U.N. program for ISIS brides. Nadia Amin is a floundering academic going through a bad breakup and, if that weren't enough, her relationship with her mother is hanging on by a thread. After she publishes an article about rehabilitating ISIS brides, Nadia is offered a position with the U.N. that she's wildly unqualified for, heading up a program deradicalizing Islamist women. She jumps at the opportunity. Younis' ambitious debut traces Nadia's clumsy attempts to get a grip on her own program. The book is meant to be funny but much of the humor feels strained, and the prose is often clogged with irrelevant details ("my strawberry-infused shampoo," to take one example) that, at best, slow the momentum and, at worst, are simply boring. The best parts have to do with Nadia's past: her own break from Islam, and her relationships with her mother and with her ex, Rosy. But the present-tense of the novel, when Nadia heads to Iraq to work with the U.N., is less successful. Younis seems eager to explore the ethical ramifications of Nadia's work. Nadia asks, "What's the appropriate punishment for ISIS brides who didn't commit any violent crimes? Can we detain people just because of their beliefs? Should we try to change their beliefs? Or can we create behavioral change without shifting ideological commitments?" But the book doesn't really engage these questions adequately. Instead, the questions are simply repeated again and again while Nadia becomes fixated on a particular woman from the refugee camps at the expense of all the others. An interesting premise is soured by strained humor and failure to engage with the author's own underlying questions.

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February 7, 2025

DEBUT Heartbroken after her longtime girlfriend breaks up with her, London academic Nadia Amin takes a job working for the UN in Iraq, where she is to create a program to deradicalize women who were ISIS brides. Her qualifications for this position are slim. Overwhelmed to be in a country where she does not understand the language, culture, or politics, she struggles with her job. Then she becomes captivated by the brashness and intelligence of one of the women in the camp and risks her position and her future to help her. While Nadia and her coworkers raise important questions about what drove these women to ISIS and how to rehabilitate them, Younis's narrative sometimes deals with these issues on a surface level. Nadia is in her 30s, but her internal musings and dialogue can seem more like that of a rebellious teenager trying to be edgy. Note that the author herself has an impressive background working in Iraq and with women radicalized by ISIS. VERDICT While promoted as dark humor, Younis's debut sometimes falls short in this regard, relying instead on juvenile jokes that can undermine the seriousness of Nadia's mission and the trauma that the ISIS brides experience.--Lynnanne Pearson

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