Name: Fundamentally
Rating: 3.7 (5 reviews)

NussaibahYounis

Nadia is an academic who's been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosy. She decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues.

Sara is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen.

Nadia is struck by how similar they are: both feisty and opinionated, from a Muslim background, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines. A powerful friendship forms between the two women, until a secret confession from Sara threatens everything Nadia has been working for.

A bitingly original, wildly funny and razor-sharp exploration of love, family, religion and the decisions we make in pursuit of belonging, Fundamentally upends and explores a defining controversy of our age with heart, complexity and humour.

By normal, you mean like you? A slag with a saviour complex?'

Fundamentally

While I wish the complexity of the matter at hand had been developed a little bit further than it was within the novel, I still respect Younis's approach to the topic at hand. There is a lot of humour to be found in the absurdity of the situation in which Nadia finds herself, in the contradictions of the UN and humanitarian aid in general, in the different mores and cultures. But the novel also understands that there is a lot of space for grief and empathy.

The text is not subtle but I enjoyed that it was straightforward in pointing out how Nadia could have easily ended up the same way as Sara. It interrogates the relationship of modern Muslim women - wether born into Muslim families or not - in the west with religion, ofwomen what can lead into radicalisation and why women may remain radicalised. It is a picture nuanced in a way that is - sadly - surprising with a year of publication 2025, when the conversation being held is no longer nuanced.

Still, I would have liked the novel to dwell more into the complexities of the topic. Perhaps a little bit less focus on Nadia being horrible towards her colleagues (who, to be fair, were barely characters - more of carricatures) and a little bit more on her struggle with seeing the radicalisation of these women and how difficult (and ethically ambiguous) the process of de-radicalisation is.

I am also surprised by how little mention I have seen of the parallels to the real-life case of Shamima Begum, with her case against the UK government still alive in the European Court of Human Rights. Something about this left an unpleasant taste in my mouth, as if it did not want to deal with controversy within a very complex topic while heavily borrowing from a widely documented example.

While I wish the complexity of the matter at hand had been developed a little bit further than it was within the novel, I still respect Younis's approach to the topic at hand. There is a lot of humour to be found in the absurdity of the situation in which Nadia finds herself, in the contradictions of the UN and humanitarian aid in general, in the different mores and cultures. But the novel also understands that there is a lot of space for grief and empathy.

The text is not subtle but I enjoyed that it was straightforward in pointing out how Nadia could have easily ended up the same way as Sara. It interrogates the relationship of modern Muslim women - wether born into Muslim families or not - in the west with religion, ofwomen what can lead into radicalisation and why women may remain radicalised. It is a picture nuanced in a way that is - sadly - surprising with a year of publication 2025, when the conversation being held is no longer nuanced.

Still, I would have liked the novel to dwell more into the complexities of the topic. Perhaps a little bit less focus on Nadia being horrible towards her colleagues (who, to be fair, were barely characters - more of carricatures) and a little bit more on her struggle with seeing the radicalisation of these women and how difficult (and ethically ambiguous) the process of de-radicalisation is.

I am also surprised by how little mention I have seen of the parallels to the real-life case of Shamima Begum, with her case against the UK government still alive in the European Court of Human Rights. Something about this left an unpleasant taste in my mouth, as if it did not want to deal with controversy within a very complex topic while heavily borrowing from a widely documented example.

different, plot-twisty, diasporic, but over all a fairytale ending 

nailah

Frech und modern geschrieben. Mit verrückten Einblicken in die Arbeit der UN im Irak und anderswo! Macht großen Spaß zu lesen trotz der ernsten Thematik der IS-Rückkehrerinnen und wirft grundsätzliche Fragen zu Fundamentalismus und Resozialisierung auf! Hab ich gerne gelesen, auch wenn der Plot in manchen Momenten ins Absurde abzugleiten droht... 

Fundamentally By normal, you mean like you? A slag with a saviour complex?'

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