I kept going back and forth with this book.  While I liked it, there were several things that threw me.

This book focuses on the activities and imprisonment of some Shelter Now International (SNI) employees by the Taliban army.  The story in and of itself was sad and gave you a bird’s eye view of what it really means to be held in a prison with no real laws for 100 days.  And while the experiences are something that very few people would have been able to endure, it felt like it was told as a shock value rather than a learning one.

The book was written to explain how the employees faith in Christianity made it possible for them to remain strong, but we rarely saw that.  Instead we were slapped in the face over and over with the pain and indignities they had to endure.  And while this must be written about, this goal of the book and the final result didn’t see eye to eye.

While I enjoyed reading the book, it didn’t scream out at me.  Shock value and constant downers only go so far.

Product Description

The story of the capture and imprisonment of eight Western aid workers in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

For three months in 2001, the desperate plight of aid workers kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan captured the attention of the world. With the growing specter of U.S. retaliation for 9/11, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden attempted to use their Western hostages as bargaining tools. What the captors did not count on was coming face-to-face with the enduring faith of people who know their only hope was in Christ.

Kabul 24 revisits their grueling interrogations, their sham trials before the Taliban Supreme Court, their peril during the bombing of Kabul, and the crushing sense that the world had abandoned them. It reveals not only the eight Westerners’ 105 days in captivity but also the gauntlet endured by their 16 Muslim coworkers who, after being taken to the notorious Pulicharki Prison, were beaten and tortured, having been accused by the Taliban of converting to Christianity.