Summary of American Girls by Jessica Roy: One Woman's Journey into the Islamic State and Her Sister's Fight to Bring Her Home

By Justin Reese

DISCLAIMER

 

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of American Girls by Jessica Roy: One Woman's Journey into the Islamic State and Her Sister's Fight to Bring Her Home

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

• Chapter astute outline of the main contents.
• Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
• Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

American Girls is a narrative about two American sisters, Lori and Sam Sally, who traveled to ISIS-controlled Syria with their children and extremist husband. The sisters, raised in a restrictive Jehovah's Witness community in Arkansas, experienced domestic abuse and falling in and out of relationships. They eventually married and settled in Indiana, where their lives diverged. Lori left her violent marriage, while Sam was drawn deeper into hers and her husband's radicalization. The sisters moved to Raqqa, Syria, where Moussa fought for ISIS, while Sam tried to protect her children from ISIS's brutality. The book explores how the subjugation and abuse experienced by women in the US contribute to the rise of patriarchal, extremist ideologies like ISIS.

• Language: English
• Publisher: jUSTIN REESE
• Release date: Jan 22, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224912018

Book preview

Prologue

APRIL 2015

SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE OF RAQQA, SYRIA

Samantha Sally, a young mother from Arkansas, crossed the border to Syria with her jihadi husband, Moussa, and their toddler daughter. They were running towards Raqqa, the headquarters of the Islamic State, which had become a self-declared worldwide Caliphate. Sam and Moussa met in Indiana, and Lori, Sam's sister, helped her safely return home.

Sam claimed that the moment on the border when she realized her husband had radicalized and joined ISIS, she lost her ability to think. However, Lori, who quit her job to bring Sam back to the United States, was never completely convinced. Women follow their husbands' commands for various reasons, even when they know they shouldn't.

On the Syrian border, Moussa plunged them into chaos, and Sam lost her ability to think. By the time he grabbed their two-year-old and started running with her across the border, it was too late. No sudden realization of the danger she faced, no second thoughts about bringing a toddler into a war zone, or doubts about exchanging the US for an Islamic State stronghold, would have given Sam the ability to change her mind and make a different decision.

Lori and Sam grew up in the same house, lived in the same cities, and married a pair of brothers. Sam's mistakes, and Lori's, could have happened to anyone.

Chapter One

In 2004, Samantha Sally, a nineteen-year-old Jehovah's Witness living with her parents and younger sister in Oklahoma, met Chris Hammer at a Route 66 car rally near Tulsa. They had grown up in Arkansas as devout Jehovah's Witnesses, but they wanted to escape the world they were raised in. Sam had tried to leave the religion once, but it ended violently. Both sisters had endured bad relationships, including one with her abusive ex-husband Robert and another with an ex-con who had gotten her pregnant.

Chris was outgoing and had a steady job as an account manager at White Cap, a national construction material supplier. He was outgoing and made friends wherever he went, but also sweet and inexperienced. Sam knew she'd reel Chris in due to her beauty, irtatiousness, and innate charm. Chris sold his prized race car to buy her a Honda CBR600RR motorcycle.

Springdale, Arkansas's fourth largest city, served as the world headquarters for Tyson Foods and was in the midst of a population boom. The city was more diverse than other parts of Arkansas, and its proximity to the University of Arkansas meant it was home to a handful of academics and white-collar workers.

Lowell, Arkansas, was a small town with a run-down farm and beautiful nature. The Sally family's farm, which occupied over an acre of grasslands, was nicknamed Mudtown Road by the homesteaders who settled there in the 1840s. Sam and Lori grew up digging for snakes in the mud that trapped mail-carrying stagecoaches and stuck to Confederate soldiers' boots during the Civil War.

The Sally sisters, born to a long-haul driver and office secretary, were left to their own devices for most of their childhood. They were raised to serve their husband, Richard, and never fought, especially in front of Sam and Lori, who grew up thinking marriages never had arguments. As kids, they would go hiking or possum hunting with their cousins, who were also Witnesses. Lori, quieter and more studious by nature, would curl up on the oor with a book while Sam watched the few movies her parents allowed.

Demons, wickedness, and the end of the world loomed large in their childhoods. For Jehovah's Witnesses like the Sallys, life was essentially a waiting game that felt impossibly urgent and frustratingly stagnant. They spent much of their time preaching to their neighbors, discouraged from extracurricular activities and academic pursuits.

As kids, the sisters spent several hours each week worshipping at the Springdale Kingdom Hall, a squat brick building just a short drive down Route 265 from their farmhouse. Every Sunday, a public speaker would deliver a lecture based on scripture, followed by a discussion of an article chosen by the elders from the Watchtower magazine. Sam and Lori would sit beside their mother, Lisa, in straight-backed chairs upholstered in brown wool.

Chris lived in a brick duplex in Springdale with three bedrooms, a full garage, and a private backyard. Lori began staying some nights at Chris's house, and Sam got a part-time job at the White Cap where Chris worked, and Lori started working the overnight shift at Walmart in Bentonville, splitting her time between her parents' house and Chris's.

Sam and Lori, two sisters who had stopped attending Witness services at sixteen, were excommunicated from their congregation due to disfellowshipping in the Witness faith. Their congregation was informed that they were no longer Witnesses and shunned by their community. Lisa and Richard maintained a cordial relationship with their daughters, but secretly so that she didn't risk being disfellowshipped.

Sam and Lori moved in with Chris in Springdale, where they started throwing parties almost every night at the duplex. Lori found it hard to relate to them, as she wasn't good at making small talk or having Sam's innate social grace. They felt like they were two magnets turned against each other, attracting and repelling each other.

Lori felt lost and guilty for not being a God-fearing Witness wife and mother. She felt guilty that she had already failed to become the person she had been raised to be. Chris knew about the sisters' religious past but only outwardly evident in Lori. He had trouble relating to her and found her clueless, socially awkward, and eager to please.

On weekends, the sisters enjoyed drag racing on the backroads of Arkansas, reveling in the feeling of being free from their parents' rules. One day, Lori beat Sam through a light, and Sam was incensed. Sam skidded across moving traffic, miraculously slid through to the other side unscathed, and Lori pulled up beside her in her Hyundai, screaming and crying.

Sam was like that—impulsive, stubborn, and reckless with her body. In Springdale that summer, she was feeling especially brash, keen to outrun the mounting troubles and disappointments she'd accumulated since getting married three years earlier. Her now exhusband, Robert, was nineteen when they first met in an internet chatroom, and Sam was sixteen, temping part-time as a receptionist at the air-conditioning company where her mother worked.

Sam, a young girl who had been disfellowshipped from the church at 16, believed that her husband Robert would be her savior. However, Robert was cruel and abusive, and they started dating. Lori, an 18-year-old, had also experienced sexual abuse by a family member in elementary school. The Jehovah's Witnesses have a "Two Witness