"An essential eyewitness account, and with luck an inaugural document in a Syrian literature that is uncensored and unchained."—Kirkus Reviews
"She has the novelist's eye for telling detail…Hers is the urgent task of showing the world what is happening. Thanks to her, we can read about the appalling things that go on in secret, underground places."—The Guardian
"Her book is infused with a hauntingly poetic narrative style. Chilling, disturbing, but irresistibly compelling."—The Daily Star
"Four new books confront the [Syrian] revolution head-on…Of the four writers, Samar Yazbek provides the most arresting, novelistic prose…uncompromising reportage from a doomed capital."—The Spectator
"Impassioned and harrowing memoir of the early revolt…"—New York Review of Books
"The heartbreaking diary of…a Syrian who risked her life to document the regime's brutal attacks on peaceful demonstrators."—The Inquirer
"Its importance is in its existence, the effort of so many Syrians to share their stories and Yazbek's own courage and ability to record them."—The National
"It's heavy and horrible, like so much related to the war. But the book also reminds that Syria is—was—utterly beautiful."—CNN
'If you want to put a face on the Syrian revolution, try an activist named Samar Yazbek…she’s a walking refutation of the argument that the conflict in Syria is simply a sectarian civil war between Assad’s Alawites and the Sunni majority. —David Ignatius, Washington Post
