A review by johndiconsiglio
I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad by Souad Mekhennet

3.0

So much for journalists not making themselves the story. That’s the whole point of Mekhennet’s part-memoir, part-dispatches-from-Jihad-frontlines. A Moroccan Muslim raised in Germany, she traces 15 years of reporting from Middle East danger zones. There’s no questioning her bravery. And she captures the voices of radicalized youth. But her book, while sometimes riveting, is kinda disjointed. It’s a mix of the personal (understanding the embrace of religious violence in her culture), the professional (what’s it like to cover terrorist networks) & the historical (bite-size current event recaps). I’m not sure all the pieces fit.