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cindyp's review against another edition
4.0
Dunya Mikhail, in The Beekeeper: Saving the Stolen Women of Iraq, gives voice to victimized women and one daring rescuer who hope that "people will know the truth about what's happening."
Since 2014, ISIS, called Daesh in Iraq, has terrorized the Yazidi area of northern Iraq by killing men who will not convert to Islam and kidnapping women and children. Those enslaved are raped, tortured, forced into the sex trade and even work with chemical weapons. The unlikely hero of this story is Abdallah, a beekeeper in Iraq until he organized a network of rescuers because "[o]ur mountain has melted from the tears and beseeching of the families." Mikhail, now a United States citizen, is a journalist and poet from the Yazidi area. The book is a series of heart-wrenching conversations between Mikhail and several Yazidi women, interspersed with her reminisces of the brutal world that replaced the Iraq of her childhood.
Abdallah's network consists of often unnoticed farmers, taxi drivers or shopkeepers. His ability to find ransom, plan escape routes across countries and remain calm in the face of terrorists is striking. The fearlessness of the captives who trust those they don't know in order to escape is a testament to the will to survive. As Abdallah says, "Hope is our daily bread."
Headlines cannot do justice to the suffering of victimized groups across the globe. As the surviving Yazidis bear witness, the very least the rest of the world can do is listen.
-reviewed for Shelf Awareness 4/13/18
Since 2014, ISIS, called Daesh in Iraq, has terrorized the Yazidi area of northern Iraq by killing men who will not convert to Islam and kidnapping women and children. Those enslaved are raped, tortured, forced into the sex trade and even work with chemical weapons. The unlikely hero of this story is Abdallah, a beekeeper in Iraq until he organized a network of rescuers because "[o]ur mountain has melted from the tears and beseeching of the families." Mikhail, now a United States citizen, is a journalist and poet from the Yazidi area. The book is a series of heart-wrenching conversations between Mikhail and several Yazidi women, interspersed with her reminisces of the brutal world that replaced the Iraq of her childhood.
Abdallah's network consists of often unnoticed farmers, taxi drivers or shopkeepers. His ability to find ransom, plan escape routes across countries and remain calm in the face of terrorists is striking. The fearlessness of the captives who trust those they don't know in order to escape is a testament to the will to survive. As Abdallah says, "Hope is our daily bread."
Headlines cannot do justice to the suffering of victimized groups across the globe. As the surviving Yazidis bear witness, the very least the rest of the world can do is listen.
-reviewed for Shelf Awareness 4/13/18
bookedbymadeline's review against another edition
2.0
I received an ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The story had a lot of potential and It was an important story for everyone to learn about. However, the author did a very poor job of presenting the book. The writing is very fragmented and it reads as if she typed up the conversations word for word. I couldn’t get into the story because it was all over the place and not put together very well.
She also throws in her poetry or bits about her life/her past that didn’t link with the rest of the story. Her poetry didn’t make any sense and sounded pretentious when placed in the middle of a survivors story. She also didn’t talk about the background of the Yazidi people or how important Mount Sinjar was to them which would have added to the story and been useful.
I read the entire book hoping it would get better but it never did. It’s an important story that everyone should learn about but maybe read news articles or other books about Daesh because this book is about as interesting as a news report. I enjoyed hearing the stories from these brave women but the author could’ve done a better job presenting the stories and spent more time talking about Abdullah and giving background on him too. It’s called the beekeeper of Sinjar and I felt like I knew more about the authors personal life and not much about the beekeeper.
She also throws in her poetry or bits about her life/her past that didn’t link with the rest of the story. Her poetry didn’t make any sense and sounded pretentious when placed in the middle of a survivors story. She also didn’t talk about the background of the Yazidi people or how important Mount Sinjar was to them which would have added to the story and been useful.
I read the entire book hoping it would get better but it never did. It’s an important story that everyone should learn about but maybe read news articles or other books about Daesh because this book is about as interesting as a news report. I enjoyed hearing the stories from these brave women but the author could’ve done a better job presenting the stories and spent more time talking about Abdullah and giving background on him too. It’s called the beekeeper of Sinjar and I felt like I knew more about the authors personal life and not much about the beekeeper.
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