Fundamentally: Shortlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction

We were fortunate enough to receive copies of this book as our book group was one of the six selected to shadow the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Told in the first person , the author writing from direct experience of working in UN and related NGOs, the story is set in Iraq in 2019 and focusses on the de-radicalisation of ISIS brides and 30 something academic Nadia’s role there. This was certainly an original theme and something I had never read about in fictionalised form so all credit to it for that.
I found the first section of the book tricky to get my head around. The tone was satirical, sarcastic, critical and supposedly “laugh out loud” funny? It came across as something of chick-lit rom-com with explicit sexual references, overdrawn ludicrous caricatures of the UN staff, contemporary cultural references to dating apps, and sexual practices, which I assume was intended to endear us to the main character despite her own inexperience and ineptitude alongside her over zealous arrogance. Instead I found myself disliking her and finding her annoying. All the accompanying cast of characters seemed ignorant, crass, rude and inept. Exaggerated for comic effect perhaps?

However as the story progressed I found myself drawn in.Sara’s, the ISIS bride from the East End of London, must be the story of many girls from the Muslim community in the Uk , not least that of Shamima Begum, and the background to her story was fascinating and authentic sounding. The reality of their lives and the contrast when they reach Syria or Iraq where they were subject to harrowing abuse, was powerful and disturbing to read.

I was interested in the references to real events and people in particular Anwar al - Awlaki, the Al-Qaeda leader and cleric, who radicalised girls such as Sara. Clearly the author had real knowledge of this world.

A serious and important topical issue - but the tone, particularly at the beginning of the book when I felt the writer was trying to shock, was one I struggled with. I wondered constantly what a Muslim reader might make of the book. It was a curious mixture of serious and informative detail about communities and cultures with which I was unfamiliar, interspersed with elements of farce which didn’t always work.

I was gripped by the whole escape episode even if it was implausible. The book became something of a thriller in this last third. The confrontation with Sara at the end was fascinating as was the discussion about the two worlds the women live in and the type of Muslims they were.

I enjoyed Nadia’s back story - her relationship and alienation from her mother, and her mother was one of my favourite characters . The depiction of aid workers was more realistic and successful I felt than the earlier portrayal of UN staff. Perhaps the author really wanted to shine a light and mock these organisations? Clearly her credentials would qualify her to make authentic and accurate observations on that world.

Happy fairy tale ending somewhat implausible perhaps. I gather the author has a book deal for two more books. She will be someone to look out for although I don’t think this would be a worthy winner of this year’s prize.