Laura H.* is a notorious figure in the Netherlands. After converting to Islam at a young age, she and her husband left the country in order to join IS. In 2017, they escaped the Islamic State with two small children in tow. Her husband died en route. She wanted to return to the Netherlands, said that she's sworn of Islam and no longer held any fundamentalist beliefs, which of course was treated with huge amounts of skepticism by everyone. She was eventually convicted to three years in prison, so by now she's already living on the outside once again. This book, by journalist Thomas Rueb, is mostly concerned with the question of what could possibly convince a "normal, Dutch woman" who wasn't raised in the faith to join a terrorist state. He quickly shows that she wasn't all that normal, but in fact deeply troubled. Are those extenuating circumstances? Of course, her being a woman and a mother also creates a lot of sympathy as well. It's easier to feel for her than for her abusive husband who was born into a family of Palestinian refugees. Even with all the hardship that implies.

*Censoring a last name like that is done in the Netherlands to protect the privacy of anyone suspected of convicted of a crime.