I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story

by Michael Hastings

Book Overview

The "wrenching" (Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show) first book by acclaimed journalist Michael Hastings (1980-2013), whose unflinching Rolling Stone article "Runaway General" ended the military career of General Stanley A. McChrystal.

At age twenty-five, Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for Newsweek. He had at his disposal a little Hemingway romanticism and all the apparatus of a twenty-first-century...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 141656098X
• ISBN13: 9781416560982
• Release Date: February 2010
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Mr. Hastings is courageous beyond belief to share his grief with us.

The tragedy of losing someone as close to you as your first love is unimaginably painfull. It is made even more grueling if it is under the conditions that his fiance passed away in. There are those reading this book that forget that message. I am not one of those individuals. Thank you for sharing your story with the world. Nothing could ever bring her back but maybe telling her story will make you whole.

Awesome book

I teach high school history. This book gives an awesome over view of the war in Iraq. Giving heartfelt dipictions of the social consequences of war. I would encourage all to read.

Amazing, emotional story - a must read

This truly amazing book tells two stories. The main story is of course the beautiful, modern love story between Michael and Andi. Everyone that has been in love can relate to the stories of their first couple dates, the playful yet intense arguments that you get into when first finding out about each other and the overall feeling of just wanting to be next to the person you love. The tragic end to their relationship literally made me break down and cry. It only took me a couple days to read most of the book, but it took an additional couple days just to read the last couple chapters. The final chapters are so overwhelming that I needed to stop reading every so often just to collect myself. The second story is about the war in Iraq. I have read hundreds of books and stories about the current conflict and no other book so fully explains the war better than "I Lost My love In Baghdad." Everyone should read this book in order to fully appreciate what is happening on a day to day basis to our troops and the Iraqi people. I fully recommend this book and encourage everyone to read it. You will not be able to put it down.

An amazing book, entertaining and tragic

Hastings' book is a phenomenal introduction to young love and life in Baghdad. Throughout his story, there is a unique perspective on Iraq and daily life there. I could sense the intensity and constant danger ubiquitous in the country. More importantly, this story really makes me regret not having the opportunity to ever meet Andi Parhamovich. He portrays her as a beautiful, noble, vibrant young woman and her loss feels tragic even to the reader.

A pair of star-crossed lovers

From prologue to last page, "I Lost My Love in Baghdad" draws its strength not from the sense of tragedy and ambition of Macbeth but the sense of tragedy and tumult of Romeo and Juliet. The war in Iraq and its healing were the proximate causes which kept Michael Hastings for Newsweek and Andrea Parhamovich for the National Democratic Institute in Baghdad but the final cause was their young love. There is a plague on both houses in Iraq and the feel for scorching heat, armed clashes in the day and night and the indispensability of hired security hasn't come through as strongly in other visions of the war. The tragedy of every war is confirmed here and the final pages envisage Andi's final moments in all the horror of immolation, but the last line could still have been Romeo's to Juliet, "Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and on thy cheeks. And death's pale flag is not advanced there" Well worth the reading.