The book is a historical testimony from the time before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021. In her qualitative research, the author traces the interwoven narratives of girls' and young Afghan women's experiences of suffering, solidarity and hope, focussing on the subjective realities and agency of girls and young women in Afghanistan. She contextualises how women in Afghanistan have always been exploited as pawns of national and international actors and the extent to which military and humanitarian interventions have ignored the realities of life.