Eza­gui — a mis­fit in an Ortho­dox world, a devot­ed son, and an enthu­si­as­tic sol­dier — has writ­ten a thought­ful and humor­ous mem­oir that reflects his unique­ly charm­ing and self-dep­re­cat­ing per­son­al­i­ty. His hon­esty, whether writ­ing about his rela­tion­ship with his fam­i­ly or his col­leagues in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), or about his phan­tom pain, makes his sto­ry even more compelling.

Ezagui’s ear­ly life cer­tain­ly was not an indi­ca­tor of what was to come. As a child, his par­ents moved him from pub­lic school to an Ortho­dox school where he was bul­lied by his class­mates for not being ​“tru­ly” Ortho­dox. He fin­ished school strug­gling with feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy. After grad­u­at­ing Eza­gui joined the IDF, where he found the struc­ture, edu­ca­tion and emo­tion­al sup­port (he describes his supe­ri­ors and col­leagues as remark­ably sup­port­ive and empa­thet­ic) that he sought.

Describ­ing his injury and the dif­fi­cul­ties it brought — from per­sis­tent pain to a depen­dence on drugs — Eza­gui goes on to explain how he ulti­mate­ly endured, and came away from the expe­ri­ence a stronger per­son who knew he want­ed to return to active mil­i­tary duty. The sto­ry of how he achieved that goal, sur­pass­ing phys­i­cal chal­lenges through his strength of will, is incred­i­bly inspiring.