A review by carriedoodledoo
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

4.0

I can't believe it has taken me this long to read this classic. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to imagine pre-conservative/extremist Islam life in the Middle East. Yet--google images of life in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and other countries at various periods of the 20th century, and you will see the progression. We have this image in our heads of all middle-eastern countries being populated by countless replicas of the same half dozen people dressed in various iterations of sheets wrapped around them and equal numbers of soldiers, of nothing but sand and bombs and camoflauge and blood and mosques. And yet--Malala tells of how it was before the Taliban came, and what happened when they did--the theft of history and culture and education. I vaguely remember news stories of 15-20 years ago, that spoke of encroaching infringements on human rights "over there", and not knowing what to think. And I read this book now, and I'm smacked in the face with how similar it is to eyewitness accounts of how the Nazis took power in Germany, and how the Kim cult of communism is maintained in North Korea, and how parallel it is to Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't Happen Here". This is truly terrifying and heartbreaking and inspiring.