This is a book that makes me question my belief in human nature. Brutal. Cruel beyond words. and true.
This is a book that reports interviews with women and girls who were taken by Book Haram for reasons 'way more terrible than the public "Allah Akbar" narrative: while their actions were wrapped in the flag of religious fervor, it's obvious that the pure flex of power, guns, and money are, in fact, the reasons for the rapes, mutilations, beheadings, murders, fires, and decimation that they cause. A leader who proclaims that selling women is God's message to him, that marrying women to his soldiers will produce a new generation of true believers (his beliefs being such that even Muslims must undergo religious training, since their understanding is wrong) Young men with guns, knives, the thrill of the hunt, the murder of everyone, the more cruel, the better.
The interviews are woven with explanations, background: how Boko Haram arose, how it's changed, how money was spent to both bolster and fail to destroy it. It tells of the many people of northern Nigeria, the history, the geography, the culture, the trade routes. This is that corrupt government, ignorance, and international support brings. Man at his most basic. Man cruel.
An utterly stunning situation. Should be required reading for the world, since we all see parallels everywhere.