Guest House for Young Widows
Among the Women of ISIS
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Guest House for Young Widows
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Narrated by:
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Sarah Agha
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By:
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Azadeh Moaveni
About this listen
A gripping account of 13 women who joined, endured, and, in some cases, escaped life in the Islamic State - based on years of immersive reporting by a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Finalist for the Baillie Gifford Prize • Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly and one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Toronto Star • The Guardian
Among the many books trying to understand the terrifying rise of ISIS, none has given voice to the women in the organization; but women were essential to the establishment of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s caliphate.
Responding to promises of female empowerment and social justice, and calls to aid the plight of fellow Muslims in Syria, thousands of women emigrated from the United States and Europe, Russia and Central Asia, from across North Africa and the rest of the Middle East to join the Islamic State. These were the educated daughters of diplomats, trainee doctors, teenagers with straight-A averages, as well as working-class drifters and desolate housewives, and they joined forces to set up makeshift clinics and schools for the Islamic homeland they’d envisioned.
Guest House for Young Widows charts the different ways women were recruited, inspired, or compelled to join the militants. Emma from Hamburg, Sharmeena and three high school friends from London, and Nour, a religious dropout from Tunis: All found rebellion or community in political Islam and fell prey to sophisticated propaganda that promised them a cosmopolitan adventure and a chance to forge an ideal Islamic community in which they could live devoutly without fear of stigma or repression.
It wasn’t long before the militants exposed themselves as little more than violent criminals, more obsessed with power than the tenets of Islam, and the women of ISIS were stripped of any agency, perpetually widowed and remarried, and ultimately trapped in a brutal, lawless society. The fall of the caliphate only brought new challenges to women no state wanted to reclaim.
Azadeh Moaveni’s exquisite sensitivity and rigorous reporting make these forgotten women indelible and illuminate the turbulent politics that set them on their paths.
©2019 Azadeh Moaveni (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
“A skillful, sensitive report...superb.” (The Guardian)
“The debate badly needs an injection of sanity. Happily, Azadeh Moaveni’s Guest House for Young Widows...provides some perspective.... Moaveni makes several pertinent points.” (The Sunday Times)
“A fascinating dive into the lives of women who aided or flocked to Isis.... Moaveni portrays her subjects with nuance, and even a dose of compassion - an approach that yields a far better understanding of Isis than more sensationalist accounts.” (Financial Times)
What listeners say about Guest House for Young Widows
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 03-03-23
Excellent
Compassionate, so well researched. Great narration. If only the sensationslist news media wrote this well and with this much understanding of their subjects
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mauve dreamer
- 03-11-19
Excellent
Exceptional book. Very interesting and informative. Well researched by the Author, being a journalist I would expect. Really does give a proper nuanced insight into the reasons of which are not easily defined. Highly recommend. Very sad and also an indictment of Western Governments complete lack of understanding of the whole issue. Lot's I could say,however I would say read it and I hope it will challenge people's misconceptions. Narrator was excellent too.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anjali Puri
- 22-04-20
Reality can be heartbreaking
it is a lovely book. My only issue was that I listened to it during the lockdown... which, I feel, warrants lighter reading. The stories of the women in this book are heartbreaking. I feel that young, vulnerable girls should be exposed to these stories...
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Jenny Cutler
- 25-05-20
Hard read to keep up with but definitely worth it.
Fiercely read, with good reason. Incredible diction, which is essential as it's such a complex account of the social interactions between different races, sexes and religions of everything that goes on between Bethnal Green and the terrifying war-torn parts of the earth. An incredibly intelligent attempt to explain at a gigantic unfathomable subject.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Bee
- 18-10-19
Explanation of the Inexplicable
A useful, clear analysis of (some) the reasons why.
I read a review which was very scathing about the narration and I was almost put off buying but there's nothing much wrong with it, if anything it's a little monotone.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- ANAHITA REZVANIRAD
- 11-09-19
The narration is just awful
Fantastic book. Just what we need in this time of confusion and mistrust but I can not stand the narrator! Constant pauses and questions marks when not needed!!!! Better just to read the book if you can
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- TJTB
- 30-04-21
Amazing content - awful narrator
This book would receive 5* across all categories if it wasn’t for the narrator. She speaks too stoccato and over-pronounces EVERY single syllable of every word with a clipped English accent that truly grates.
I should move to actually reading this book instead of listening.
Such a shame because the content is extremely fascinating and well-researched and that is what I highly recommend. I’d read more from the author.
Change the narrator and the audio would benefit hugely.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- esther thomas
- 02-01-21
Disjointed
I was looking forward to reading/hearing this book as part of it had been on the radio. I was also interested in learning more about young women like Shemima Begum and what caused them to do what they did. It is well written, however I found it disjointed - it was hard to follow different characters as they were spread throughout the book, and I think it would have been better if each chapter was dedicated to telling the whole story of each girl or group of girls.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Clare
- 01-12-19
Guest House for Young Women
The narrator is awful. Staccato and pause
s inappropriately so that both listening and comprehending is affected- and not for the better. She has good pronunciation of Muslim etc words but that is the only positive thing I can say.
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