Marwan Hisham

This was a very accessible if difficult memoir. The most interesting parts were the beginning of the Civil War — the protests against Assad and the emergence of all the different rebel camps arrayed against him and against themselves — and of Hisham's time working at the cybercafe in Raqqa, serving ISIS soldiers. It was written well, in an open-faced, approachable way, drifting between his past life as a child growing up under Assad's regime, to his life as a student in Aleppo, to his friendships with fighters, to his struggles to survive in one of the most chaotic and dangerous milieus in modern times. It felt like a gentle, deeply human introduction to the past decade of turmoil in Syria. The pictures were beautiful and haunting, as well. I wish I could've read this in the flesh!… (meer)