elaboratelyemily 's review for:

Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Michèle Fitoussi, Malika Oufkir

4.0

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

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This book will stay with me forever; I'll never be able to forget the vivid descriptions of Moroccan prison and extreme isolation for decades. The solitary confinement sections were incredibly powerful. I did not love that the story was not told in chronological order; themed sections made it difficult to follow the timeline. I probably could not name anyone in the story other than Malika, and some of her siblings really fall to the background of the book despite only having a few people in the story. I do wish that there had been more context given because how central politics are to this story. I loved the beautiful descriptions of Morocco and the cities, especially after visiting many of them myself.