Yasmeen #1 is due out July 22, 2020. — **Yasmeen #1** is due out July 22, 2020.

By Mike Donachie — If you can bear it, Scout Comics forthcoming book Yasmeen #1 is a story about the real, human experience of refugees, told through the eyes of a young Iraqi woman who escaped ISIS.

It’s a harrowing read. In this story, Yasmeen is 16 and has a happy life with her family in Mosul…when violent conflict intervenes. The point this book makes is unmissable, in the pleasant home, the Toyota SUV, and even the kid happily playing video games when suddenly – literally at a moment’s notice – the family is forced to leave everything behind to flee sectarian attacks. “Yesterday we had a new house and a whole future,” one character says, and it’ll break your heart to see it.

The narrative is split between the crisis in Iraq and Yasmeen’s later years seeking to adjust in the U.S. as a refugee. This first issue is centered on the harrowing initial escape and the shocking events that surround it, but the story synopsis promises more in later issues, including Yasmeen’s experience enduring slavery at the hands of ISIS.

There are interesting comments, too, from writer Saif Ahmed in the solicitations for the issue. He talks of a real depiction of refugees as complicated people. Although the story is fictional, the characters are based on people he knows.

And Yasmeen herself is a combination of “thousands of real-life brave women who didn’t need super powers to be called heroes”. This story will humanize the victims of wars that always seem safely far away, and it will do it in a way that makes you grateful for your own comforts.

This absolutely is a tough subject. If you like your comic books diverting and simple, with good guys punching bad guys, look elsewhere. If you want a story in the tradition of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis or the excellent Hostage by Guy Delisle, you should pick this one up.

Overall: A story in the tradition of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis or the excellent Hostage by Guy Delisle, Yasmeen #1 follows a girl’s experience surviving slavery in ISIS-held Iraq. 7.0/10

Yasmeen #1 - REVIEW

Yasmeen #1
Writers: Saif A. Ahmed
Artist: Fabiana Mascolo
Letterer: Robin Jones
Publisher: Scout Comics
Price: $3.99
Iraq, 2014. Life couldn't be better for 16 year-old Yasmeen as her family is able to buy a big new house. Then ISIS invades Mosul. Yasmeen's Shia family barely escapes, while Yasmeen us captured by terrorists and sees her uncle executed. Yasmeen is sold to an ISIS fighter as a slave and must relinquish her innocence in order to save her three new Yazidi friends who are punished with starvation. Two years later, Yasmeen is reunited with her family in the United States. Her parents are so happy to be reunited with Yasmeen that they fail to see the state of depression that she has fallen into after two years of slavery and torments. Now faced with a new life, Yasmeen must learn to survive in a society that both fears and hates her and must overcome the horrors of the past in an attempt to find herself again.
Release Date: July 22, 2020
Buy It: Click here!

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Mike Donachie is a communications professional and newspaper columnist who takes delight in having a thick Scottish accent nobody can understand. You can find him at @Mike_Donachie.