Fundamentally
Shortlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction
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4.4 • 11 Ratings
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
'FUNNY, GRIPPING AND COMPASSIONATE'
DOLLY ALDERTON
'A REAL TREAT . . . BASICALLY BRIDGET JONES IN IRAQ'
THE TIMES
'THIS SMART, PUNCHY BOOK IS DESTINED TO SPARK CONVERSATION'
IRISH TIMES
THE DEBUT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT | SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025
By normal, you mean like you? A slag with a saviour complex?
Nadia is an academic who's been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosy. She decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues.
Sara is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen.
Nadia is struck by how similar they are: both feisty and opinionated, from a Muslim background, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines. A powerful friendship forms between the two women, until a secret confession from Sara threatens everything Nadia has been working for.
A bitingly original, wildly funny and razor-sharp exploration of love, family, religion and the decisions we make in pursuit of belonging, Fundamentally upends and explores a defining controversy of our age with heart, complexity and humour.
'TACKLES RADICALISM AND RACISM, FAITH AND FRIENDSHIP, WITH DEXTERITY, DEEP CARE AND A LARGE DOSE OF LAUGHTER'
GUARDIAN
'THE DEBUT OF THE YEAR'
STYLIST
'ORIGINAL, FUNNY AND FEARLESS'
NINA STIBBE
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Who doesn’t like the idea of saving someone? But what if that someone has a very different conception of what it means to be saved? This engrossing story follows two East London girls in Iraq, both opinionated, both from a Muslim background and both very keen on Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. But, beyond that, there are real differences in their world views: Academic Nadia took an international aid job with the UN, needing to escape from her imploding personal life, while Sara joined ISIS as a teenager.
Debut novelist Nussaibah Younis looks thoughtfully at the impact of foreign aid and saviour complexes, while also considering friendship and how our beliefs are shaped. What is unexpected, at least from reading a description of the plot, is how funny this novel is. There’s satire, but it also captures the raucous glee of two young women bouncing off one another. Ultimately, though, the wider instability of the world around them triggers a series of events that tests both Sara and Nadia—and the conclusion doesn’t settle for easy answers.
