MORNING THEY CAME FOR US: Dispatches from Syria - Tapa blanda

A must read filled with bitter realities.--Denise Hassanzade Ajiri

Heartbreaking...[A] haunting reminder of what the Syrian revolution, ultimately, is about...Amid our obsession with ISIS, these tales are worth remembering.--Anand Gopal

Necessary, difficult and elating...[C]lear-eyed and engaged in the best sense--engaged in the human realm rather than the abstractly political.--Robin Yassin-Kassab

It is crucial to reveal the human stories behind the news--and...Janine di Giovanni does this with heartbreaking eloquence.--Elif Shafak

Ms. di Giovanni writes here with urgency and anguish--determined to testify to what she has witnessed because she wants 'people never to forget.'...Her testimony is contained here in this searing and necessary book.--Michiko Kakutani

What life is like for ordinary Syrians who have stayed behind is the subject of Janine di Giovanni's heartbreaking book...[U]nsensational but unsparing...[I]t is individual stories, rather than victims counted in the millions, that reveal the terrible cost of leaving dictators in place for the sake of 'stability.'--Joan Smith

Di Giovanni writes vividly and we see with her how Damascene supporters of Assad drift away as the brutality of his rule became impossible to deny...Di Giovanni explains to us how horrible it all really is.--Sam Kiley

The Morning They Came for Us moves from a cosmopolitan 'bubble of parties' in 2011 to 'the aftermath of a barrel bomb' today as di Giovanni observes slaughter and rape with the equal (if occasionally opposing and heartbreaking) empathies of war correspondent and mother.--Lea Carpenter

A masterpiece of war reportage, The Morning They Came for Us bears witness to one of the most brutal internecine conflicts in recent history. Drawing from years of experience covering Syria for Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and the front page of the New York Times, award-winning journalist Janine di Giovanni chronicles a nation on the brink of disintegration, all written through the perspective of ordinary people. With a new epilogue, what emerges is an unflinching picture of the horrific consequences of armed conflict, one that charts an apocalyptic but at times tender story of life in a jihadist war zone. The result is an unforgettable testament to resilience in the face of nihilistic human debasement.