Fundamentally Book Review: Audacious Premise, Offensive Execution

I recently finished Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis, a book that’s been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025.

From the very first page, Fundamentally throws you into chaos.

The tone is sharp, unfiltered and relentless. This book is not a slow burn in the slightest. It’s fast, bold, and laced with biting humour.

You’re dropped straight into the rugged landscape of Iraq with the protagonist, Nadia, and from there, the story unravels.

But despite the gripping start, I found myself wrestling with Fundamentally in a way I didn’t expect.

Not because I can’t take a joke, or because I don’t appreciate dark comedy, but because of a scene early in the book. A scene where Nadia, in a fit of anger, swears at God.

For readers of faith, pushing past blasphemous narrative isn’t just difficult, it’s a deep internal conflict.

It’s also not about being easily offended. It’s about sacred boundaries and once crossed, they leave a mark.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t find it easy to continue.

But I chose to finish the book anyway, taking the “read to critique” approach.

If I was going to challenge Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis, I needed to do so with context, clarity and care.

So since I’ve read the book start to finish, I’m here to share my unfiltered thoughts. The good, the bad and the deeply uncomfortable.

Fundamentally, is layered, provocative, and at times deeply uncomfortable (sometimes intentionally, other times unnecessarily).

Despite the buzz around Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis, and its bold premise, I found myself deeply conflicted. And for me as a reader, it raised more questions than it answered.

1. What’s Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis Really About?

Fundamentally follows Nadia, a British-Iraqi academic sent by the UN to Iraq to help de-radicalise ISIS brides. It’s a bold and charged premise from the start.

In Iraq, Nadia meets Sara, a sharp-tongued, foul-mouthed teenager from East London who joined ISIS as a young girl.

Their unlikely connection becomes the emotional core of the book.

As their conversations unfold, the story starts blurring the line between the two women. On paper, they couldn’t be more different, but underneath, they’re both searching for something. Searching for meaning, for belonging, for identity.

2. Behind Fundamentally: What Nussaibah Younis Says About Her Novel

Nussaibah Younis didn’t just write Fundamentally from her imagination.

This story is deeply rooted in her lived experience.

She studied History and English at Oxford, earned a PHD in international affairs, and later ran real -life peacebuilding projects in Iraq, including one that worked directly on deradicalisation for women associated with ISIS.

She’s described the book as a response to her own “sliding doors” moment, reflecting on her teenage years studying with a preacher who later joined Al-Qaeda. That “what if” became the seed for this book.

Instead of writing a dry policy-heavy memoir, Younis chose fiction, specifically, dark comedy. And she committed to that tone since she even took a stand-up comedy course while writing to sharpen her humour.

You can feel those satirical edges throughout the novel. Sometimes they cut clean, sometimes they cut too deep.

3. What Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis Gets Right

One thing I have to give Fundamentally credit for is Sara’s character. It is treated with real nuance.

She’s not just an “ISIS bride”. She’s a teenage girl trying to find identity, belonging, and safety in a world that offered her none.

She makes catastrophic choices, no doubt. But her humanity stays visible throughout.

Fundamentally invites you to understand her context, not excuse her actions. And it handles that part with care.

The dialogue is sharp, the pacing is strong, and when it comes to exploring the emotional complexity around radicalisation (at least in parts) Fundamentally really lands it.

As the story unfolds, you start to see what Younis is getting at which is that radicalisation isn’t always about religion.

Sometimes it comes from pain. From loneliness. From needing to belong somewhere… anywhere.

Through Sara’s journey, Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis shows how radicalisation can be less about belief, and more about emotional vulnerability.

If there’s one message that really sticks, it’s this: Nadia and Sara aren’t opposites. They’re two sides of the same coin. Both searching for meaning in broken places.

The only difference is, one found it through her job at the UN.

The other, heartbreakingly, found it through ISIS.

4. Where Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis Falls Apart

(a) Faith and Fiction: A One-Sided Take

While Sara’s humanity is drawn with real care, when it comes to Islam itself…the depth just isn’t there.

Younis does a great job of humanising Sara, despite her allegiance to ISIS and everything that stands for.

But where she succeeds in showing Sara’s complexity, she fails to separate faith from extremism.

Instead, religion, particularly Islam in this instance, becomes a backdrop of repression, guilt, and trauma.

Nadia doesn’t just question faith; she ridicules it.

She speaks of God with vulgarity, and religion ends up framed as the enemy of intelligence, freedom, even love itself.

Western stereotypes about religion aren’t challenged here. They’re amplified.

The overall message feels painfully one-sided. That religion is always the oppressor, and true freedom only comes from shedding it.

There’s this persistent undercurrent of “look how liberated she is now that she’s left her faith behind.”

And honestly, it gets tiring.

There’s barely any space in this story for practicing Muslims who are thoughtful, empowered, and fulfilled in their faith.

It’s like the only “free” characters are the ones who abandon belief entirely.

You can absolutely write critical narratives about Muslims, or even about Islam itself. That’s not the problem.

But when you go out of your way to humanise a teenager radicalised into extremism, more than you humanise the faith that extremists hijacked…that becomes deeply problematic.

(b) Satire or Self-Expression?

Younis has said this story is personal, and honestly, it shows.

As a reader who knew a bit about her background going in, I found it really hard to tell where Nadia ended and where Younis herself began.

In interviews, Younis admits she was encouraged to write a non-fiction book based on her real experiences, but chose to go the dark comedy route instead.

But here’s the thing: when fiction blurs too closely with memoir, it gets messy.

It becomes harder for readers to separate satire from personal ideology.

And in Fundamentally, Nadia’s journey feels less like sharp social commentary and more like a personal rejection of faith, without enough balance or pushback to challenge it.

It reads less like satire, and more like catharsis.

(c) Vulgarity, Identity & Shock Value

One thing about Fundamentally is that it doesn’t hold back.

The book leans heavily on crude humour. Sometimes it hits. Sometimes it misses.

There’s a scene where Nadia and Sara trade sexual insults.

It’s clearly meant to show defiance, maybe even connection.

Blasphemy isn’t a literary device. It’s a red line.

But it doesn’t land with depth. Instead, it feels reductive and cheap.

Even Islamic sects aren’t spared. They’re reduced to their sexual preferences. And for many devout readers, that won’t just be viewed as offensive, but also tasteless.

The book falls into a tired old narrative:

Modesty equals repression.

Vulgarity equals freedom.

Nadia who is loud, sexual, and vulgar, is framed as the “liberated” one.

Meanwhile, practicing Muslims are portrayed as robotic, joyless, or trapped.

It’s a lazy contrast.

And it does a disservice to people who live richly, freely, and thoughtfully within their faith.

(d) Farris: A Gentle Counterpoint That Doesn’t Go Far Enough

While the book heavily critiques religion (especially Islam) it does offer one devout character who’s painted with warmth and dignity: Farris.

He’s kind, quietly faithful, and often the emotional calm amid the chaos. He’s the only Muslim character whose belief isn’t equated with repression.

But as much as his presence is appreciated, his role is too passive to offer any real narrative balance.

He never challenges Nadia’s blasphemy. He never voices a perspective rooted in belief. Instead, he functions more like a background figure. Gentle but muted.

And when a novel is this sharp in its critique of faith, one soft-spoken man in the margins isn’t enough to undo the damage. If anything, he reminds the reader of what the book could have explored more fully, but chose not to.

(e) Satire works best when it punches up, not down

This matters especially when the subject being satirised is a marginalised group.

When satire targets power, it provokes change.

When it targets the already marginalised, it risks reinforcing stereotypes and deepening misunderstandings.

In Fundamentally, Islam isn’t the seat of power. It’s already a misunderstood and often misrepresented faith in the Western world.

So when the jokes land on practicing Muslims, it doesn’t feel daring.

It feels like punching sideways, or even down.

And instead of challenging anything, it just echoes the same tired biases the book could have risen above.

(f) A Fundamentally Rushed Ending?

Fundamentally sets up some deep emotional wounds. Family estrangement, religious disillusionment, and personal grief. Big themes that deserve real space to breathe.

But by the end, it feels like everything gets tied up a little too neatly.

Without giving too much away for those who haven’t read it yet, there’s no real sense of earned character growth.

And honestly? It left me feeling a bit short-changed.

Part of me understands that a drastic transformation would have been unrealistic. Especially given how heavy and complex the themes are.

But even so, the resolution felt… rushed.

As though years of radicalisation, family fractures, and personal crises could be fixed over a single heartfelt conversation.

The emotional payoff just didn’t match the emotional investment.

And because of that, it weakens the power of what the story set out to explore- deradicalisation, empathy, and real healing.

7. Where Blasphemy Crosses the Line

While I made the decision to finish Fundamentally to critique it fairly, I wouldn’t expect every Muslim reader, or any person of faith, to do the same.

And honestly? They shouldn’t have to.

Let’s be clear: Blasphemy isn’t a literary device. It’s a red line.

When a character swears at God, mocks sacred belief, and it’s framed as either humour or character growth, it’s harmful.

And no, this isn’t about being “too sensitive.”

It’s about respecting sacred boundaries. Every faith has them.

At a recent event, I asked the author directly about this choice.

Having read Fundamentally, I wondered whether the scene during which Nadia swears at God, was meant to be deliberately provocative.

Younis shared that her own family, especially her mother, had an issue with it.

Still, she explained that she felt she needed to be honest, showing Nadia’s rage at God for allowing so much suffering.

I respect honesty.

But for many people of faith, that’s not enough to justify the scene.

My real question is: Did it add anything meaningful to the story?

Could Nadia’s anger, her grief, her rebellion, have been expressed without dragging sacred belief into it?

Because it’s one thing to write flawed characters.

It’s another thing entirely when there’s no counterbalance. No reflection. No reckoning.

Books like Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis often try to explore radicalisation, but forget to portray the faith they claim to critique with depth or nuance.

You don’t need to believe in something to understand that some things are deeply sacred to others. In other words, you don’t have to share a faith to respect it.

The sad part is that without this, Fundamentally could have been a clever, sharp exploration of polarised issues through humour.

But the blasphemy sends it somewhere many readers simply can’t follow.

8. The Reader’s Dilemma

As a Muslim reader, I felt torn.

There’s no denying that Fundamentally is a page-turner.

The emotional arc with Sara is compelling. I can absolutely see why it would resonate with readers grappling with identity, disillusionment, and belonging.

But it’s hard not to feel alienated when books like this seem to get greenlit precisely because they confirm a particular narrative: That liberation only comes from leaving faith behind.

9. Who is Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis really for?

A story about deradicalising ISIS brides could have been for everyone.

And let’s be clear, it shouldn’t automatically appeal to Muslim readers just because it involves ISIS.

Islam and ISIS are not the same thing. Full stop.

Islam is a faith followed by over a billion peaceful people around the world and ISIS is an extremist group that weaponises religion for violence and power.

The two are not interchangeable.

That said, because Fundamentally is set in Iraq, and Islam inevitably frames parts of the story, representation matters even more.

Here’s the problem: when you represent a marginalised community, you can’t just borrow their imagery for impact and then reduce them to a stereotype.

And yet, at times, that’s exactly what happens here.

The humour, the satire, the entire voice of the novel feels aimed at a Western audience.

Readers outside the faith, not those within it.

Muslim readers?

They might still be in the room.

But it often feels like the jokes are at their expense.

It reads like:

“Let’s include a marginalised identity… and then strip it down for laughs.”

And in this case, that marginalised identity was Islam.

Rather than engaging with faith sincerely, the book often uses a character who’s left it as a vehicle for mockery. All disguised as narrative freedom.

10. Final Thoughts on Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis: Praise, Pain, and Provocation

Fundamentally is a sharply written, ambitious book that isn’t afraid to take risks.

But one risk, the choice to include blasphemy, crossed a line that, for me, can’t be explained away as mere provocation or artistic freedom.

For believing readers, especially Muslims, this isn’t just a controversial moment. It’s a deep betrayal of something sacred.

Without that one scene, without that one sentence, Fundamentally could have been something truly extraordinary for all audiences. It could have been a powerful, even groundbreaking novel.

With it, it becomes something harder to recommend, even when I can appreciate the craft and the important questions it raises.

I genuinely hope that, as the TV adaptation moves forward, the creative team considers the weight of that choice.

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Some things aren’t just “provocative”, instead they’re deeply personal. And stories this powerful deserve to reach everyone, without alienating a set group of people.

When a story draws so closely from a community’s faith and culture, it has a responsibility not to alienate the very people whose lives it reflects.