Yasmeena's Choice: A True Story of War, Rape, Courage and Survival

Because  Yasmeena's Choice  is the true account of war, rape and survival of women kidnapped for soldiers' lust and inhumanity, it makes the story even more horrific.*Two brave, beautiful young women, with two different kinds of courage. Both thrown in a no man's land, a world without mercy, where their captors enjoy making and seeing them suffer. Enjoy degrading them. Lana knows that she'll die in prison. Her body is broken by her maniac and sadistic jailer. But her spirit stays free, it will not be broken. Her courage is in her dignity. Yasmeena makes the choice to live and her courage is in her indomitable will to survive. By whatever means she can find. Even if it goes against all what she believes.Two exceptional women, two brutally stolen futures.*Once I started reading, I could not put the book down and read long into the night. Yes, it is a harsh read, especially on the emotional level, especially when you read to what extend of degradation and humiliation the girls were submitted. But Jean has skilfully avoided the trap of voyeuristic descriptions. Nothing is described in detail, you just have the blunt outline of the sadistic rapes, you know what is happening , but it is not written. The focus is on the women, their fears, their ordeals, their emotions and above all, their bravery and their will to survive.Jean Sasson has achieved to tell a horrific story while keeping the dignity of the women.*My first thought this morning was for Yasmeena. Where is she? How is she? she would be now around 45 year old. What happened to her and the others? how did they deal with the aftermath of their horror?In the West, rape victims are offered counselling, whether it works or not. There is some help to slowly rebuilt one's life if possible. But for Yasmeena, and all other war rape victims, there was nothing. They were even denied the right to an abortion. It was devastating to read that many women who have been raped thought they would be blamed for what happened to them. That they had brought their fate upon themselves by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A harsh culture where the woman is treated like a piece of beautiful jewellery but discarded immediately if there is a 'flaw'.They were just left to pick up the pieces, to carry on as best they could. No one really cared about their shattered futures. Just that they ''brought shame upon themselves'' and those around them.Yasmeena's choice is a good reminder that we, here, should not take anything for granted. Lives can be destroyed in just a few moments. That violence is all around us. We should count our blessings and spare a thought (or more) for those less fortunate. Yasmeena's story will stay with me forever. Unfortunately, hers is not unique. How many women, all around the world, are suffering? I defy anyone to keep their eyes dry while reading it.

This is a story of extreme courage, hope, strength and the women spirit. You come across the very essence of what makes a woman and how she fights to survive the cruelty of rapists and the barbaric war.My heart goes out to Yasmeena and Lana, an all those women in the shells of that prison circus. She stood strong and in a way won this war of brutality against women, for her and many of those that were raped and mistreated, and for Lana; by surviving to tell her story she has shamed these men.This book made me sad at how one human being can do this to another, angry and beyond tears on brave Lana' s plight and generally the unfairness of such oppressed views on women in a man's world. I hope this book brings upon positive change on how we see woman.Part of me really worries about what could have been the end of Lana' s fate and whether she managed to escape or was executed by the beast, or whether she was taken to Iraq which I really pray she didn't. God bless her.

This vivid true story of the suffering of the women and girls who had the misfortune to be taken captive by the invading Iraqis during the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, forced to suffer perpetual rapes and other inhuman abuses, to be slaughtered like sheep when the rapists tired of them. (Sound familiar as if history continues to repeat itself ie the hapless yazidis) like so many of the true stories I have read recently some men are wired differently although they are born from a woman and presumably nurtured by the same this minority but still a huge number of "men" can freely and without consequence rape women with impunity and without remorse often over and over again (I have been raped 30 times and it's not even lunchtime the plight of a yazidi sex slave in 2014) author Jean Sasson tells this of a girl called Yasmeena whose story is told with sympathy and without condemnation of a women "lucky" enough to have survived, it's a real tear jerker and is hard to put down until finished.

I confess to experiencing a fundamental dichotomy in being able to review this extremely shocking book. On the one hand l believe that the issue of rape and torture against women as a weapon, or by-product of war is ghastly and the propagators should be hunted down relentlessly and punished. I also believe that more worldwide publicity should be given to the awful suffering of women in conflict zones throughout the world. The only aspect of this book that disturbs me somewhat is that some strange people might read it for the wrong reasons. Indeed there is more than a hint of, dare l say it, almost titillation where some of the descriptions of torture and rape were repeated over and over, needlessly when we already knew about them. Also, l don't believe the material here was enough to fill this book. I have read several books by Jean Sasson - some of them rather good, others not so good. I will place this book half-way between. Having said that, the tragic story of Lana will certainly linger for some time in my memory.

Overall, this was another excellent read by Jean Sasson. The story, as always, was non-fiction and told from the perspective of those who lived through the horrifying events. This story is quite confronting though very real which is why I am such a huge fan of this author.This book did contain some silly grammatical errors which should have been noticed and fixed before publishing. The cover also appears to be made from a cheaper material than usual as is never sits flat but rather curls upwards.

A ‘must read’ for us all. A real eye opener which brings home the atrocities of war, the deprivations and sufferings of the innocent.

This was a book that really showed how women were treated ....It is a really good read..Very well told. It went into a lot of detail, what these women went through was unbelievable....