Interesting view of life under ISIS

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I normally do not pick up non-fiction, but the premise of this book looked intriguing and the writing seemed more like a novel. It was fascinating! And terrifying, as the story progressed. A much needed look into life under ISIS occupation in Iraq, in a city where the people lived under increasingly difficult situations and restrictions.

I appreciated the writing style. I find a lot of non-fiction to be chock-full of page-long paragraphs, frequent tangents, dry writing. In Father of Lions, thanks to it being current events and some of the people involved having great recall of dialogue, it read much more like fiction. The author is a journalist, and events were described simply, straight to the point. In fact, at times I thought the story was too unemotional, not written in a gripping enough manner, until I realized I was comparing it to works of fiction. And this was all TRUE! It was a sobering revelation. As the events occurred, the occupation becoming infinitely more dangerous, the living conditions become atrocious. People barely had enough food to eat, sought refuge in rooms far away from the streets, were afraid to go outside at the risk of being shot.

The book alternated between the story of Abu Laith, the self-declared zookeeper who did all he could to feed and care for the animals despite being unable to leave the house (ISIS occupiers in his neighborhood hated him because he refused to go to the mosque), and Hakam, the man who noticed the Four Paws organization's offer to help. Hakam's chapters were unrelated to the zoo until the end, but provided a good perspective of how the occupation treated civilians. There were some events that took my breath away, and left me in abject horror. There were also some flashback chapters into Abu Laith's childhood, some of which I felt unnecessary (the childhood was fine, but I didn't feel we needed to know the stuff about his first love). Also included were the stories of Marwan, who assisted Abu Laith when he was unable to go to the zoo, and Dr Amir from the Four Paws organization. That man - Dr Amir - was incredible and I would gladly read more about him and his work.

I wished for some additional information - the author didn't list out all of Abu Laith's children, even though they played a big part. As I mentioned, some things were unnecessary to the story of the zoo and occupation (such as Abu Laith's relationship with Sara). However, overall I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it.