I found this book difficult because it is about fundamentalism. I have lived in a fundamentalist-drenched society. I am of the same religion as the girls but I utterly disagree with their complacency and acceptance. I can almost understand how the two female sisters get swept into the fundamentalism at first, because they want to belong to something, but again, for the reader who is Muslim and who DISAGREES and wants people to learn to love and see that God made all of us and given us freedom to choose our paths, this is an uncomfortable story. Too bad that gratitude and wide reading was not encouraged sufficiently. At the end of the day, NO ONE likes loss of freedom. #NetGalley

Seierstad is a masterful storyteller and I'm a big fan of her previous work. As promised, this new book doesn't disappoint. In her trademark style, Seierstad takes us on an unconventional journey and opens our eyes to the plight of her protagonists.

This is such an intriguing and relevant piece of literary and investigative journalism. Following the true story of two sisters, of Somali origin and raised in Norway, Seierstad guides us through the events that led the sisters to leave for Syria, piecing together what happened after (as well as deftly probing at what is still happened/has happened recently). She takes apart the sisters path to Islamic radicalisation and jihadism; in this sense the book reads like a puzzle, whereby the author examines the pieces thoroughly and in great detail in order to understand how they fit together.

The hero of the story is no doubt Sadiq, the sisters’ father– his determination to kidnap them is laudable - in spite of being tortured, risking his life and not having the means (and the resounding fact that the girls do not want to be saved). Seierstad, and Sadiq himself, are extremely honest about Sadiq’s unreliability as story teller – in a way this makes the story/his version all the more convincing and real.

I know so much more than I did before reading this book about Syria and jihadism. The author tackles so many important and different questions and discussion points. I found her decision to take on this particular story compelling – making it less about numbers and international powers and more about the personal choices that spur one to make dramatic decisions (by which they determinedly stand by). This is also a story about the destruction that is left behind in the wake of such decisions – how war wheedles its way into our lives on almost every level. This is the story about two sisters but it is also the most important story of our time.

Seierstad writes about her choices and decisions in writing this story in the last section of the book. I found this to be really interesting – she explains why she chooses to leave things in, and why she left certain details out. This book seems to be interested in broadening the conversations we are having (or not having) about Syria and the radicalisation of youths in Norway (and elsewhere). The author doesn’t claim to have the answers but she is definitely examining all the right questions.

I first started reading "Two Sisters" on my phone at the hair salon; not the best way or place to start reading anything, but it turned out to be perfect. By reading on the phone I was able to grab more story wherever I was, and this is the kind of book you do not want to put down.

Once I finished, it took me a long time to process what I had read. The story is riveting, and the heartbreak of the girls' parents drives the story. But there are other aspects that reminded me of Masha Gessen's "The Brothers" about the Tsarnaev family and the Boston bombers and the challenges faced around the world by refugees and immigrants.

It used to be that once someone emigrated, that was that. You couldn't pop back for holidays or text people back in the old country. Letters, if you could write, took months. You had to commit.

Gessen's Tsarnaev family hit the jackpot and made it to Boston, but everything about their lives faced Dagestan and Chechnya. They had big Skype screens on all day connected relatives' houses, they are on Facetime constantly with someone in Grozny. Sadiq's family in Norway is much the same. They are refugees and Norway saved their lives, but mom Sara never learns Norwegian or works, and when the shit hits the fan, she takes the youngest children back to Somalia, where dad Sadiq's Norwegian welfare payment supports a household of sixteen people. Sara does not want them to become too Norwegian, yet it's not being Norwegian enough that sends them, too, toward Islamic fundamentalism. Only the eldest son embraces what his father sacrificed so much for, working and studying.

At last check the girls are happy as housewives of the Islamic State, living communally, served by their Yazidi slaves. ("They're spoils of war," Ayan tells a Norwegian friend, who cuts off all contact with her in horror.) In middle school Ayan had a coterie of immigrant girl friends, and while the middle eastern girls were lured by jihad, the girl whose family came from China went on the live her dream to leading a rock band and the girl from the former Yugoslavia studied medicine. What is it that pulls these young women who had so many options to choose a twelfth century life?

I have no answer to these questions but this book certainly raises a lot of them. Sadiq's search for his daughters is an exercise in raw courage, and the descriptions of how children are radicalized is riveting.

"Two Sisters" is an important book that will keep you thinking for a long time after you finish.

Fascinating read that is very relevant to today's society. It is also quiet scary as it shows how easily someone can be groomed (not just by ISIS). I would definitely recommend this for teens, parents, teachers etc.

In 2013, two teenage girls, Norwegian citizens originally from Somaliland, abruptly left home and went to Syria to join the jihadists there.

Asne Seierstad's book tells the story of these two girls and their father's efforts to track them down and bring them home. What could have convinced a couple of intelligent girls from a moderate Muslim family to join Islamic State and support the ISIS fighters? In the process of telling this story, she examines the process of radicalisation and paints a realistic picture of how such a bizarre outcome could gradually come about.

Seierstad also gives a lucid and at times harrowing account of the activities of ISIS and the other Islamist rebels in Syria. The violent chaos that she describes sits strangely with the girls' insistence that they are living happy, fulfilled lives in the midst of all this mayhem.

Seirstad acknowledges that her story is necessarily partial; the girls never agreed to give her an interview, and she has had to rely on their father's unsupported account for part of the story. Even bearing that in mind, this is an eye-opening and compelling account of the radicalisation of Muslim youth in a Western society.

Ayan, 19, and Leila, 16, two young Somali Muslim girls, living an outwardly happy and ordinary life in Oslo, walked out of their home as on any other school morning but on this occasion never came back. They later contacted their parents to say that they were on their way to Syria to help ISIS. In a compelling account, which reads much of the time like a thriller, Seierstad explores how it came about that two much-loved daughters, living a very westernized life-style, became so radicalized that they were willing to risk all for their new-found cause. The girls had become radicalised over a number of months and although their parents were aware that they were becoming stricter in their beliefs and religious practices had no idea they had been brainwashed to such an extent. Their father followed them to try to rescue them, putting himself in great danger, but they didn’t want to be rescued, and to date (April 2018) they remain somewhere in the region. Islamic State has collapsed and the fighters and their families scattered. The girls were last heard of in Raqqa. No one has heard from them for some time.
This is a really fascinating exploration of how radicalisation works, and tries to explain the attraction for so many young people who have become disillusioned by secular society and tempted by what they see as a better and purer way of living. Written with the full cooperation of the Juma family, we see how their devastated parents and siblings cope with the fall-out from the girls’ defection and the effect it has had on each of them. Although their family were practising Muslims, they never held extreme beliefs and only in retrospect could they see that anything was wrong. Seierstad’s research is meticulous and thorough. She remains on the outside looking in and the reader can make their own conclusions. She offers no explanations but just the facts. The author doesn’t judge and it became increasingly clear to me that I couldn’t judge the family either. The nightmare that began on that morning in 2013 continues. This is an important and very relevant book and will be of interest to anyone who finds fundamentalist Islam – or indeed any fundamentalism – bewildering and largely inexplicable. The book gives us a glimpse into a world that we usually only get to know in the headlines. Extreme Islam is not open to argument or debate and we fail to acknowledge that to our peril. This book can at least help us understand it a little better.

Tragic and interesting and important story. Difficult read.

Two Sisters is the story of two teenage Somali immigrants who leave Norway to join ISIS in Syria. The story tells their father's desperate plan to bring them back. It is heart wrenching and emotional. But it is also well researched and tells an honest story of Syria and the relations in the Middle East. Seierstad is a journalist and does a fabulous job telling a non-biased story full of suspense and unbelievable narrative.

A fascinating story about two teenage girls who leave their comfortable lives in Norway to live in Syria under the rule of IS. Seierstad is an investigative journalist so this book is well-researched, well-paced, and presents an abundance of facts to allow the reader to draw their own conclusion. There were times where I was amazed/shocked at what their father did to try and bring them back, it sounded right out of a novel, not a non-fiction book. This book will give readers a very good understanding of the rise of IS in the Middle East as well as what exactly has happened in Syria over the past few years and shine a brighter light on how teenagers growing up in dual cultures cope with never quite finding a place that is all theirs. I only wish we can know a few years from now the continuation of this story.