Defiance: A Memoir of Awakening, Rebellion, and Survival in Syria

by Loubna Mrie

An unprecedented and unforgettable first-person account of resistance and transformation from a young Syrian woman—raised with deep family ties to the authoritarian government—who risked everything to rebel against the regime

Loubna Mrie was raised a staunch Syrian Alawite—a member of the same insular, historically oppressed Muslim sect as then-President Hafez al-Assad. Her mother’s father helped plan the coup that saw Hafez seize power in 1970 and bring the Alawites out of hiding and into a position of total control; her father was intimately involved in Hafez’s government as an enforcer and assassin. In her household and community at large, the president was seen less as a political figure and more as an object of near-religious devotion.

When the Arab Spring reached Syria in 2011, and popular discontent with the rule of Hafez’s son, Bashar al-Assad, triggered large-scale protests and prodemocracy rallies across the country, Loubna sought out an antigovernment demonstration out of curiosity and found herself forever changed by what she genuine passion for a better future for all Syrians being brutally repressed by government forces. When she returned to her grandparents’ home in Damascus, her jeans spattered with fellow protesters’ blood, her grandmother called her a traitor. Unable to ignore her political awakening, Loubna plunged ahead into a life of activism—in opposition to both the regime and her abusive father—with unimaginable consequences.  

An account that includes her mother’s murder as a direct consequence of her resistance activities and the kidnapping and execution of her American boyfriend, Peter Kassig, at the hands of the Islamic State, Defiance is a searing, ground-level view of surviving the unendurable at the flash point of one of the most visible and least understood wars in recent history, from a perspective that is rarely considered, let alone heard—that of a Syrian Alawite woman.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Middle East, Biography, Biography Memoir, Politics

432 pages, Hardcover

Published February 24, 2026

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Allow me to be ridiculously pedantic for a second. (If you just said, "Again?" then we are in a fight.) Memoirs worry me when I start them. I am always concerned that the author will make themselves either the eternal victim, or worse, the unsullied hero of their own story. If you call yourself the hero, then you are no hero. It's a rule I have. So, with that annoying little requirement in my head, I opened Defiance.

Loubna Mrie is no hero. At least, according to her. I think she defines herself as a survivor. I, however, consider her a hero.

Mrie grew up in relative privilege in Syria as part of the ruling class. She also grew up in abject terror as her father is, well, let's just say not a nice person. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't comment further on him. I want the reader to experience this story the way I did because this book is one of the most powerful I have read.

What makes this narrative so exceptional is the utter emotional abandon in which Mrie writes. She is a reluctant revolutionary. In fact, she is a naive young girl who gets dragged into the resistance because she's just naturally inquisitive (and maybe a bit rebellious in the way most teenagers are). This is not a memoir of a budding standard bearer with nerves of steel. She is a flawed, scared woman who is trying to find a life of her own on her own terms. Her innermost destructive thoughts are never hidden. She makes decisions that, while understandable, will make the reader wince. She hides from consequences of her own making or completely out of her control and drowns her trauma in drink. And yet, she persists. Mrie will continually question her choices but consistently chooses to move forward to help save her homeland.

The book is a true page-turner. It begins almost like a normal coming-of-age story only to morph into a litany of near-death experiences, loss, and despair. While that all sounds like a very challenging read, I should also point out that Mrie is also very funny. Yeah, I didn't expect to find that in here either, but somehow Mrie's sardonic humor will come through to relieve the pressure. It's the type of nonfiction book which reminds me why I don't read fiction all that much. I have everything I need right here, and it's all true. Mrie went through hell, got her bruises, made her mistakes, and then was willing to show the world the unvarnished truth in order to shed light on the homeland she loves. That's where the heroism is.

(This book was provided as a review copy by the author and Viking Books.)

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished Loubna’s memoir and it’s a must read!
Loubna is Journalist from Jableh my hometown off of the Syrian coast
She has always been a figure that I would discretely try to know more about whenever I leave the safe walls of my politically active household
In Jableh, every word was carefully spoken as a pro-regime city with assadist warlords running every inch inside it

I’ve never cried, laughed and took breaks so much for a single book
Recognizing names of her relatives from my school, names of mutual friends of hers & my sisters that I grew up watching and thought so much of

Loubna has a very sick dark (concerning) funny humor I think some might enjoy lol
I laughed a lot, a LOTTTT but it’s not for the weak hahahhahaha

Sharing cries and laughter with my sister while we reminisce memories and faces as Loubna’s squeaky but cute voice narrates in audible was a very warm and memorable experience
I wish every person gets to read and hear a memoir or any peace of writing that connects them and revives the feelings i had the chance to get revived with this book

This memoir is truly a gentle gift for me and more for Syrians her age who lived through the uprising and the losses in the last 15 years

And Sarah Jessica Parker loves it apparently so

[Ivana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how to review this book, it has absorbed me and I feel something I can only describe as deep grief. I grew up in the Balkans and lived through our civil war. So when I read Loubna's memoir, I found parts of our stories merging.
It is a memoir of one of the bloodiest civil wars, but it is also a story of pervasive child abuse and abuse toward women, in a system underpinned by toxic patriarchy and misogyny, so prevalent, so normalized by the culture so as to appear almost biologically factual. I know that system, lived that system, and the rage I felt reading through these pages was incandescent. For it is only in a system like this that murderous systems like Assad's and ISIS's can sprout-they are interdependent, intertwined, they cannot exist without the other. Loubna's courage, defiance, persistence in the face of that system is incredible, beyond courageous...it is legendary. I hope she has disentangled the poisonous vines of the system that made her believe she is to blame for what has happened to her and to her family. I hope she is tending to her wounds and her grief, that she finds peace and heals this devastating trauma. I hope that for all of us victims of various Assads, for they're all the same in the misery and destruction they sow. Different flags, same criminals. May they all burn in hell.

[Basil · Rating 5 out of 5]

If one were searching for a hagiographic account of a Syrian woman, reluctant revolutionary, and exiled journalist, they ought to look as far away as possible from "Defiance." Loubna Mrie matches all the above descriptors, yet she refuses any heroism, continuously unspooling the most wince-worthy of her thoughts and actions, and therefore allowing herself to appear on the page as broken and fraught with contradiction as the country she belongs to and the revolution she participated in. She may resent me for calling her writing brave, but her refusal of such a characterization would only further attest to my point.

"Defiance" opens with a scene that demonstrates Loubna's alienation from the communal rituals she grew up with. Simultaneously, the first few pages immediately establish my own distance from the writer’s background. Despite sharing the same language and national identity as Loubna, my upbringing as a Damascene Sunni Syrian and hers as an Alawite woman from Jableh render us dissimilar enough to dwell on the differences. More consequentially, the historical politicization of our identities set me and Loubna up to likely belong to opposite political camps of the Syrian revolution and war. In the initial section of the book, our differences were the main factors behind why I found "Defiance" compelling. Loubna’s account was the first in-depth narrative I’d personally read of an Alawite woman’s upbringing and coming-of-age, let alone revolutionary participation, and she writes about her personal triumphs and devastations with startling clarity.

In many ways, Loubna is an unlikely revolutionary. Her father was an assassin for Hafez Al-Assad, and her grandfather on her mother’s side was a diplomat for Hafez as well. She was fairly well-off and did not grow up in an especially politicized environment. Like most Syrians, she was also spoon-fed a narrative that painted the dictator and his son in heroic terms. As an Alawite Syrian however, there were additional valences to the benevolent dictator narrative surrounding Hafez Al-Assad: his rise spelled a collective triumphant uplift of Alawites from communal oppression stretching back to the 16th century Ottoman Empire. Per the narrative Loubna grew up with, any threat to the Assadist dictatorship would existentially threaten the fragile safety of the her own community as an Alawite. A reader would naturally wonder how it was that Loubna came to be so politicized, and came to carry costs too devastating to bear due to her unlikely participation in a revolution aiming to topple Assad’s Syria.

As she recounts it, Loubna curiously and clumsily stumbled into a shocking reality during her college years. After finding her way to a protest in Damascus’s suburbs, she would begin to learn that Hafez Al-Assad’s so-called “uplift” of Alawite Syrians was not an innocent matter: it involved mass murder, systematic imprisonment, and torture until death in complete secrecy within vast prison networks. The lattermost would later become the horrific fate of Loubna’s mother. It was singularly the most devastating cost Loubna paid for her participation in the revolution, and Loubna's grief would later be compounded by losing a dizzying amount of the loved ones to the regime and to ISIS over her years as a revolutionary and journalist. As a consequence, Loubna’s almost accidental revolt eventually became as defiant of the Assadist dictatorship as it was a revolution against the culprit behind her mother’s murder: her own father, another murderous patriarch with decades’ worth of blood on his hands. Her rebellion was also a rejection of the communal narrative she grew up with—a disruption to her sense of self that carried griefs too vast to reckon with through any sort of writing.

I was of course aware of the Alawite community’s complex relationship with the regime. Many Alawites besides Loubna participated in the revolution, and they did so partly out of solidarity with other Syrians, and partly because of the fact that many of them were also oppressed victims of the regime’s violence. Many of them also fiercely and violently defended the regime of course. Yet Loubna’s scathingly honest personal account allowed me to appreciate much more deeply how siloed from each other Syrians of different backgrounds are, even as they took on the mantle of a cross-sectarian revolution aimed at liberating all Syrians. For one, I inherited a very different historical narrative that brought home the stakes of the Syrian revolution as a young teenager immediately. My family belongs to a class of Syrians much more likely to be oppositional to Assad, both because of the regime’s brutal collective punishment of Syrians, and because of classed sectarian resentment. In that sense, my belief in the Syrian revolution was not at all a familial revolt. It was the most acceptable and justified position to hold, which is all the more reason why readers who share my background ought to engage with “Defiance.” It brings out aspects of the Syrian Revolution and Syrian society many of us could easily remain blind to.

Though appreciating our experiential and communal differences were critical to my reading experience of "Defiance," I do not wish to reduce Loubna’s craft, or my relationship with the text, to questions surrounding identity and sect. As Loubna herself writes, “Although I am glad my work is being recognized, I often wish that people would know me as anything besides the Alawite journalist who lost her mother” (p.280). Respecting Loubna’s wishes is not too difficult, since her writing has impacted me in many more ways than serving as a window into her identitarian struggles. Loubna’s prose is matter-of-fact, curious, and sardonic in its explorations of rebellion and tragedy. It is equal parts blunt and vivid, bereft of tasteless flowery romance yet too invitingly vulnerable to be properly labeled abrasive or misanthropic. Her style refuses any form of self-flattery, insisting on self-interrogation without slipping into self-flagellating narcissism. In doing so, she also rejects any suffocating self-seriousness that would appear in the hands of a lesser writer, periodically injecting her writing with bitingly dark humor.

Yet above all else, "Defiance" is compelling because it is palpably honest. I cannot help but particularly dwell on how she characterizes the most violent man in her life. It is not at all easy, nor expected, for a woman in her position to recall her criminal father’s rare tender moments and portray them more generously in writing than she believes he deserves. Many other such examples of quotidian courage within the book are the mark of a writer who has done incredibly difficult internal work to arrive at many complicated conclusions about herself, and about the revolution she gave so much of her life for. I can’t help but admire it.

Even as I revere Loubna’s ability to interrogate herself and the violent narratives forced upon her, I do not wish the consequences of Loubna’s defiance upon my worst enemy. She acutely experienced the debilitating guilt and pain of exile that most revolutionary Syrians are deeply familiar with, all while grieving her loved ones, anxiously following the news, and navigating linguistic and cultural barriers in Turkey and the US. She knew personally, and to varying degrees of intimacy, many highly publicized martyrs of the Syrian revolution including Naji Al-Jerf, Peter Kassig, and Bassel Shehadeh among others. She witnessed shocking scenes of brutal violence and narrowly dodged death. To the same extent that her story is unique, partly because of her background and partly because of the trajectory she spelled out for herself, it is also a mirror for the endless ocean of pain most Syrians continue to hold within themselves. There can be no romanticization of such pitch black grief.

Still, Loubna has shown through her writing a remarkable ability to work through personal tragedy and to reject easy narratives of victimization and heroism, against all odds. Her work remains unfinished and imperfect—and I do wish the book’s final chapter recounting her exile in the US could have dug more deeply through the years of despair between 2019 and 2024. But nonetheless, there is only so much emotional excavation one writer can make in one book. Loubna’s story is not an easy one, but I find certain aspects of it aspirational. I believe the work of rejecting easier narratives of exclusive communal belonging, hero worship, and ethno/racial/religious/gendered antagonism must be the responsibility of all of us, Syrian or not. Her book stands as an imperfect testimony that, while holding uncomfortable moral positions may be extraordinarily costly, it is not only possible. It is right, and it is honest.

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a masterpiece. Full stop. Memoir only does so much for me in telling a story, pulling me into a life—it has to brake the chains of the form somehow to get my attention. Along the likes of other works like “The Yellow House” by Sarah Broom, “Heavy” by Kiese Laymon, “Sigh, Gone” by Phuc Tran, Loubna Mrie has done that—surpassed the form and created an absolutely heartwrenching book about her life growing up in and later being exiled from Syria during the last 35 years of turmoil.

I don’t want to use this review to talk about Syria—we should all be talking about Syria all the time. I want to use this space to talk about how masterful this book is. Mrie is a rare author who is actually capable of bottling rage, bitterness, sorrow, horror and spelling them out on the page. She clearly has a natural ability to tell a story—the natural use of tone, voice, tense choice, … it’s masterful English prose that has that magical quality of pulling you in close and letting you in on secrets.

I cannot imagine the hearteending work the actual writing of these pages must have taken: recounting the losses over and over. What makes the telling of her story so downright incredible, though, is how risky the entire writing of it is. This is REAL writing, REAL journalism, alive on the page and published amid the activism and the action.

I owe Loubna a lot for sending this book my way. I also owe Anand Gopal something, too. I read his book recently, published a mixed review about it—that led to Loubna Mrie messaging me and getting her story into my hands. I’d have missed this otherwise. I also would have not been nearly as ready for the reading of it as I feel I was after reading Days of Love and Rage—a powerful work of journalism despite my inability to maintain focus at length.

If you read a memoir this decade, let Defiance be the one you read. Forget Lena Dunham. If you want to read about authoritarian rule and religious nationalism, let Defiance be that book. I’ve come away changed by it.

[Souha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Defiance is a strikingly honest memoir. What stayed with me most while reading it was the generosity with which Loubna Mrie shares her life. She does not simply recount events, she opens up her inner world with remarkable clarity and vulnerability. There is no attempt to dramatize or romanticize experience. Reading Defiance feels less like being told a story and more like being trusted with someone’s lived experience.

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

enlightening

While I’m not a literary critic I can tell you with absolute certainty that this story is incredibly important. It’s a reminder that NO country or people are a monolith. The world is complicated and there are no simple answers. Conversely, we are all so very similar. We need only remember our shared humanity.

[Shannon (The Book Club Mom) · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re already compiling a stack of memoirs to read next month for #memoirmay, I have one that you must add. DEFIANCE by Loubna Mrie is powerful, educational, emotional, and heartbreaking. This is one of those memoirs that you didn’t even know you needed to read until you’re deep into the thick of it. Once you start, it will be hard to tear yourself away from it.

I will admit right away that my knowledge is lacking when it comes to Middle Eastern history and politics. So when the author reached out to me and asked if I would like a copy of her memoir, I was hesitant at first. After reading the description of DEFIANCE, I agreed because I knew it would open my eyes, educate me, and give me a better understanding of the political climate in Syria.

QUICK SYNOPSIS:
𝘈 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘮𝘦—𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮.

READ THIS IF YOU ENJOY:

- Family drama and dynamics
- Politically-charged memoirs
- Coming-of-age stories
- Resistance, rebellion, and activism
- Emotional reads
- Strong and brave characters
- Insight on the Syrian Civil War
- Reflections on loss and grief

This memoir is very detailed and eventful, so I don’t want to share too much. I won’t be able to do it justice. Just know that I was completely captivated and absorbed from start to finish. Mrie has quite the story to tell. I will say that this isn’t an easy memoir to read. It’s quite dark and heavy and some parts were very difficult to read about. The fact that Mrie is even alive to tell her story is indeed a miracle and a blessing. The amount of near-death experiences she encountered blew my mind.

I highly recommend the audio version as Mrie narrates her own story, and it feels like you’re having a deeply personal one-on-one conversation with her. The emotion in her voice amplifies the entire reading experience. I will never forget her story.

[lys · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Normality glides forward, slowly, rapidly, ineluctably, perpetually. It’s horrifying how life can go on, uninterrupted, despite all of the agony taking place elsewhere on the same earth. How is it that the whole world does not pause and come together to do something, anything, to stop this—or at least to mourn?”

This is without a doubt the most powerful and heartbreaking memoir I have ever read. I cannot even begin to find the words to do it justice, and it enrages me that it hasn’t gotten more attention.

“A heavy wave of sadness debilitates me. The sadness of realizing that I had never imagined experiencing a war where I would be overwhelmed with uncontrollable jealously toward someone because he was able to bury the upper half of his mother’s body.”

“Words cannot convey how a revolution transforms you; you have to live it. No matter how many books you read, nothing compares to the first chant you hear emanating from the depth of your heart. Nothing compares to the sound of the first explosion or the sight of the first death.”

[Sara Kuwatly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm having a hard time putting all my thoughts into a cohesive review, so here are some of those thoughts: (who knows, maybe one day I'll come back and write a good review)
- I'm so glad that Loubna wrote this book - her perspective as a young woman on Syria pre and during the revolution is so important and i'm glad that it's being recorded and immortalized in this book
- Some pages felt like I was reading my own journal, as someone who (clearly) struggles to put my thoughts and feeling into words, I felt seen
- This book made me laugh, cry, and gasp multiple times
- I just have so much respect for people who are willing to be so vulnerable with the world, like thank you for letting us into your head and being so generous with your story

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely devastating. So many tears. But incredibly moving. How do you describe a book like this? Certainly one of the most beautifully written memoirs I’ve read. But more than that, Loubna is so raw and unvarnished. She is not a hero - just a human, making many mistakes, living with regret and learning to make sense of the trauma of her country, culture and family: the patriarchy, misogyny, abuse, and senseless killing and destruction. I am ashamed at how little I understood regarding the Syrian war. Thank you, Loubna, for your bravery sharing your story and very personal experiences. I hope it makes us all more committed to goodness and human dignity.

[Marlou · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 +⭐️!!!!

[Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have some reluctance in going the full five stars on this book, to which I will return in the end. Let me start with the many strengths of this book.

A little detour first. Before retiring, I was a professor of international relations theory, not of a student of current events or recent history, but of the structural history of the world political economy. On more current events, for example, the endless wars perpetrated by the USA against Third World states, I try to wait a few years before seeking to learn something about the invasions' effects on the targeted countries. My strategy is to turn to novels or memoirs. This way, I get not only the facts but the inner life of facts as they move through the lives of people. This strategy helps me retain the facts and it helps me understand the impossible necessities of the conflicts. So, for example, when I wished to learn something about Lebanon, I read Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir and the brake up of Yugoslavia led me to The Bridge on the Drina. I spent an entire summer reading only novels by Iraqi authors, for example, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1.... You get the idea.

I was confused by what's happening in Syria, so I waited for a book like this one. It did everything I needed it to do. For example, I learned of the different sects and their political and cultural orientation. I learned how "foreign fighters" came to Syria and the vexed role of Western aid institutions. And, I learned of Turkey's role in all this.

In addition, the narrator takes every opportunity to make herself complicit in everything going on in the country and in the damages that accrue to her own life. This is the great strength of the book. Loubna Mrie vividly shows her participation in the tragedies that befall her and her country. It is rare that any character is represented as the epitome of evil. Mostly, everyone is grounded in the impossibility of their own dire circumstances. The story is continuously heart breaking but I never felt that my my more saccharine impulses were being taken advantage of.

I listened to the book which is narrated by the author herself. Her voice is engaging and there are two sections where she barely holds on to speak her words. Powerful.

The negative. Had this been a story told not by a young Syrian woman and instead by someone living in Europe or the USA, I would have written it off as a kind of self-destructive pathos that eventually triumphs in self-reparation. The kind of story that seems that publishers think will sell well. The kind of story that comes out of an MFA in the US. This small lingering irritation kept me from a full embrace of the story. But, I suppose this is not her fault.

Rather, I left the book admiring the courage of loubna Mrie, both in her daring actions and in her self-criticism. Her desire to always hold on to what is just redeems the project and wins over the reader. It might also make this an important work.

[Fawn Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I have read this year. At times, it feels like historical fiction or the plot of an action/ adventure coming-of-age fantasy, but the fact that it is a memoir just elevates this story to one of the most important and well-written books I have ever read.

Loubna Mrie vividly brings to life the Syria of her childhood in the 1990s and introduces complicated, violent patriarchal family dynamics. As she grows into young adulthood, civil war breaks out. Forging one's own identity at that age can be fraught in the best of times, but amid the chaos of war is really brutal. Loubna is incredibly brave, but that sometimes reflects the immature, reckless behavior of a young adult. As the book progresses, she fully immerses us in her thoughts at the time without a lot of polished hindsight. She is so vulnerable and fallible, as any young adult is, but her father and family culture are somehow more cruel than war, as she's forced to seek safety outside Syria. And then ISIS enters Syria, and the heartbreak just compounds.

Her honesty about her self-destructive tendencies and the difficulty in shedding her deeply ingrained worldviews amid new environments is tenderly poignant. Again, there are moments of clarity that don't veer into simplified hindsight. We are with her at every step. She, again and again, deals with her trauma by "running into the nearest burning building." She commits to the hope she had for her country early in the war, ever the revolutionary, even as her losses created a chasm of despair.

I'm so grateful Loubna Mrie has shared her life story. Her losses gutted me. But she survived. She found her voice and should be lauded among the most important journalists and memoirists of our time.

I highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by the author. Masterfully done. It still makes me want to cry remembering the emotion in her voice.

[Nizar Mohamad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loubna Mrie's Defiance is a book unlike any other. Loubna writes a riveting memoir of her life in Syria as a young woman from the endlessly complex Alawite community who risks everything to join the uprising against the brutal Assad regime, a regime in which her father serves as a high-level enforcer. Through Defiance, Loubna takes you on her personal, political, and spiritual rebellion against the multiple, mutually reinforcing systems of domination -- from her father's oppression to the repressive societal norms that (both explicitly and implicitly) sustain patriarchy, sectarianism, and authoritarianism.

Loubna's story is riveting, and is told with a refreshing honesty and vulnerability that instantly connects you to her and bonds you to the narrative in indescribable ways. Loubna is a force -- a powerful and blunt narrator who takes you on a wild ride that is as devastating as it is hopeful. Her sense of humour, cutting and sarcastic, will make you burst out laughing. The sentimentality with which she describes her home town of Jableh, her relationship with her late mother, her time in exile, and the many often-overlooked ways in which she and other Syrians have been traumatized since they dared to rise up in pursuit of freedom, all combine to create a story that is epic, timeless, and will have you pathologically turning the pages to find out what happens next.

And it will, as powerful writing often does, make you feel a cascade of emotions from across the spectrum. Above all, it is the way that Loubna fearlessly and unapologetically pours her heart out on the page that makes this memoir so remarkably moving.

While there is certainly no shortage of literary praise to be showered on this book, I'll end this review here in order to avoid sharing any spoilers. Buy her book -- it's extraordinary. You won't regret it.

[Kolt A · Rating 5 out of 5]

To have the strength, courage and ultimately the defiance to stand up to an authoritarian government by bringing to light the terrors faced by yourself and the people of your nation in any way possible is a signal of one’s love for their nation and their willingness to see it for what it is and to work to bring better, despite the rise of radical factions and foreign entanglement.

Loubna Mrie details her childhood, her ingrained devotion and lessons to follow the teachings and words of the Assad government as they were a situation of life or death (because they ultimately were.) She describes her desire to see the Syria she loves become a better land for her people, where they can exist without government oppression and judgements based on differences in religious sect.

In her fight to bring to light the traumas, bloodshed and killing of her people, her decision to stand up and speak out brought heartbreak to her own life when she lost her mother, friends, love and herself in her perceived shame at abandoning Syria for her own safety and journey to self discovery.

The Syrian plunge into its own Arab Spring, followed by civil war and ultimate redemption with the fall of Assad saw thousands killed, displaced and abandoned by the western world to its own devices, the rise of the Islamic State and executions broadcast globally.

Its effects are still felt today where the nation, in its efforts to rebuild and restructure still have a monetary crisis and a leader who was once part of a faction that sought to further divide and capitalize on the chaos. To read the story of an individual who came from the “respected class” because she was Alawite, just like the Assad’s, who saw the oppression for what it was, and still chose to speak out is one of extreme courage and strength in the face of adversity and loss that comes from such a decision.

[Melina P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loubna Mrie takes us with her on a journey of self-discovery, love and loss, through the lens of her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, showing us how these composite elements wrap around each other, whether for the revolution, the Syrian people, or her loved ones. Her writing is marked by an unflinching honesty, often turning inward with a level of introspection that feels almost exposed in its rawness. The reader is drawn into the current of her interior world, where emotion is not merely described but lived: experiencing anger, bewilderment, sadness, guilt, injustice and, most of all, perseverance.

For readers both familiar and unfamiliar with the Assad era, the memoir offers an intimate insight into a life formed within its shadow: her relationships with family, her country, friends, and lovers are rendered with both intimacy and rupture. At its core lies a quiet but persistent force - her unwavering alignment with the goals of the 2011 revolution, sustained even as it places her in direct contradiction with the world she was born into. What we witness is not only a story of political and personal defiance, but one of interior exile: a slow and often painful disentanglement from inherited belief, and the search for a self capable of surviving and eventually flourishing beyond it. It is, ultimately, a memoir of bravery and persistence, often without any clear sense of destination, where survival itself becomes a form of resistance.

In reading Loubna's memoir, one is invited not only to witness her journey, but to reflect upon it. Her experience suggests a revolution that is not only collective, but also a deeply internal remaking of the self. I highly recommend everyone that comes across her book to read it - it truly is a must-read.

كتير حب إلك يا ل 💛

[Isaac Murtha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that will stay with me for years. It’s probably the best book I will read this year. The prose— which begins by chronicling Loubna Mrie’s childhood and follows her through the Syrian Civil War, is beautiful and devastating.

Loubna Mrie writes frankly about a childhood that included privilege, abuse (from her father), love (from her mother) and indoctrination (from the state.) She writes movingly about her (almost incidental) choices to protest, her growing involvement in the anti-Assad movement, becoming a reporter, the failures of the opposition, and the death of her friends. Through it, she’s brilliant, traumatized, headstrong, full of messy personal decisions, and heroic. She’s complicated and human, and her perspective helps provide compelling window into the Syrian Revolution.

My own ancestors were from an area in Lebanon not far from where she grew up. Some of my own ancestors shared the Assad name with the dictator, though (thankfully) we are not related. Reading this memoir, I wonder about the accidents of geography and fate that resulted in me being born in the United States. I hope that if I were in her position, that I would have displayed half her courage.

Read this book.

[Jill Dobbe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Defiance takes readers on a roller coaster ride of politics, logistics, and emotions. Growing up in a well-to-do family in Syria with a philandering and abusive father who worked with Hafez al-Hassad's regime, Mrie, an Alawite, was closest to her mother, who encouraged her to get an education and to work. Despite her father's threats and abuse, she worked hard and eventually became a reputable photojournalist, despite being disowned by her father's family for her beliefs.

Mrie, escaped to Turkey, where she continued to write about the atrocities that occurred in Syria. She risked her life numerous times whenever she returned to Syria, photographing demonstrations and the bombed-out villages. Mrie had a deep love for her country and wanted the world to see what was truly happening there as she made a name for herself by posting her photos to social media.

Mrie was an activist who, despite the odds, survived so that she could raise awareness of government repression, hoping for a better future for her fellow Syrians.

Thank you author, publisher, and Netgalley for this ARC.

[Isabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

had the honor of spending a few weeks in rural Wyoming with Loubna......a light in every room: brilliant and beautiful, hilarious, cutting, sardonic, surprising...her memoir took my breath away. Completely absorbing--confidently written, unsparing, unvarnished, unflinching, wry, deftly threading complex historical proceedings, intimate experience, vivid scenes of exile and occasional, complicated returns. Singular in voice and style.

Struck by the interaction with abo mariam, a foreign fighter eager to die - "I have no regrets....I am actually extremely happy....This happiness will double once I am martyred and am reunited with my friends in heaven. 37 of us have been martyred in the last ten days, and I swear did not see a single person die without a smile on his face....I would never hesitate."

Briefly, Loubna fantasizes about being his wife, "I want the protection and love." Abo Mariam, a few months later, will detonate a truck in Haditha, killing himself and a dozen Shi'a soldiers. Waiting in her room for him to leave, reflecting on their conversation, for the first time Loubna states plainly, "Unlike him, I want to live." <3

[Keila (speedreadstagram) · Rating 5 out of 5]

My gosh what a book. So a friend of mine recommended this to me. We take great pride is trying to get an emotional response out of each other, and well, he did with this book. My gosh the life that Mrie went through is nothing short of shocking. I texted my friend a few choice words at certain parts of this book, wondering what the heck he was having me read. He said oh just wait, each time. In my mind there was no way you could top what she had just went through, but then it happened, again…and again. This memoir is so much at times that I just had to stop and pause, but I couldn’t not come back. It was a compulsion that I had to meet. I needed to finish and wow its just so good. Her sense of humor is dark, and not your regular oh that is dark type of humor, think darker and then you might be close.

I recommend listening to this one because the author narrates it herself and it is gripping.


Thank you to @vikingbooks @prhaudio @loubnamrie and @netgalley for access to the e-arc and alc copies. All thoughts are my own.

[Rohan Advani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible, powerful, and deeply honest memoir of life in a tumultuous Syria. Its a story of how one woman defied her community, rejected the foundations of her social world, and sought to build new ones, often with great difficulty, confusion, and doubt. What is particularly compelling about this book is that the narrator does not heroize or romanticize herself or her story—it is full of honest reflections about the messy world we inhabit, and especially the moral complexities and ambiguities that result from social upheaval and war. And even though the book is based around the revolution and civil war in Syria, the earnest style of writing makes it actually relatable. If you're looking for a compelling story, wanting to know more about Syria, or even become immersed in a totally different world, this book is for you!

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling, riveting and powerful memoir without an inkling of self-pity. She is mercilessly honest, even when reporting on her own actions. I knew very little about the civil war in Syria. The complexities between the warring factions are overwhelming, dating back to the Ottoman Empire. I imagine an overview of the political histories of Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Afghanistan are equally complex and deep.

I saw Loubna Mrie speak at the Tucson Festival of Books this past March, before I had read the book, and was impressed with her eloquence, humor, and courage. When I read the book I was stunned at the risks she took, impressed by her dedication to the revolution as well as her craft, and am in awe of her formidable courage.

There were times when I had to close the book and absorb all that she had just revealed and experienced before I could open it and continue reading.

[H + C Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I initially selected this audiobook to gain a more personal understanding of Syria, which the author, Loubna Mrie, expertly provides. She takes readers into the Alawite community, to protests and through rebel-held areas. With the accuracy and integrity of a photojournalist, she frames the history that sets the stage for the Syrian uprising and captures the long, painful labor for a transformed Syria. Along the way she documents atrocities that will make you want to vomit.

While I was drawn in by a regional interest, the real gift was getting to know Loubna. I especially loved that she personally narrated the audiobook. Her courage, in rejecting societal demands and consistently questioning the allegiances she was expected to keep, is awe-inspiring. Her memoir itself is an act of defiance, a soul-stirring account of her own rebirth.

[Elisa Sanz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this. So well rounded, honest, relatable in unpredictable ways, and illustrative of a generation.

As witness and participant to critical events in Syria's
recent history, Louba skillfully embroiders her very personal story onto the complex fabric of Syrian society under dictatorship, patriarchy, cultural traditions, norms and their fringes, social classes, the makings of sectarianism and how all that shaped a revolution and the many fists eager to crush it.

Just an easy-to-read, gripping autobiography, but also a perfect introduction to what happened in the country, now seemingly buried under new cataclysms and resistances, but still so pertinent.

Also she is funny (despite how dark the story gets)

100% recommend

[Marie-Annick Glon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know what to say about this book that would do justice to the story that Loubna writes of her life growing up in Syria. I couldn’t stop reading and when I paused, she stayed on my mind and will stay for a long long time if not ever. From a historical POV, it helped me put together and understand the events that happened in Syria since the Arab Spring, the Rebels, the rise of Isis to the fall of the regime. This a must read for anyone who wants to understand and empathize with the struggles of people whose lives are constantly oppressed under dictatorships. I think about all the girls and women trying to survive daily…

[Jenny D · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is absolutely the best memoir I've read on home and country and belonging. Loubna writes without any sense of the bravery she conveys. Her story is so touching, and it makes the problems of a Western life seem minimal and trivial as she tries to process the grief of losing her home, her mother, her boyfriend, etc. That amount of loss and her ability to persevere is admirable. This story gives an inside look into the experience of regular Syrians who just wanted freedom and democracy and imagined a different future for Syria and who are no longer as confident in a democratic future for Syria.

[Dr Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most memorable book I’ve read this year. Loubna brings you into her world, as a privileged child in a very wealthy household. You learn quickly this comes with lots of strings. With a strong mother, Loubna begins to learn the value of education and independent thought in an oppressive regime. It is coming of age, magnified by war and suppression. Loubna has a strong soul but little experience in resistance. She learns firsthand what brutality is.
I was completely engaged from the first page. I cannot recommend this strongly enough for those of us now under a fascist regime. Please read this amazing memoir. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[Mirela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Defiance really caught me off guard. I didn’t expect such a raw, unfiltered account, or for Mrie to position herself so far from the typical “hero” narrative. What makes the book work is exactly that—she leans into the discomfort, her own contradictions, and the messy reality of what it meant to live through and participate in the Syrian revolution. The writing is striking without feeling overworked, with moments that are genuinely hard to shake. More than anything, it’s the nuance that stayed with me—this isn’t a clean or easy story, and Mrie doesn’t try to make it one. Haunting and, as others have said, hard to put down.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a very nuanced view of the religious and political conflicts at the heart of the war in Syria. Reading this book was difficult. There is a lot of heartbreak, disappointment and hopelessness. However, whenever I thought about giving it up, I found myself returning to the book because learning more about these realities feels like a civic responsibility. The information I learned about the Syrian civil war - why it started, why folks did or did not participate in the resistance, and the outcomes - feels incredibly applicable to other conflict areas, and human nature in general.