By Samira Ahmed
Little Brown and Company, 2022. 404 pages. Young Adult Fiction
After discovering the body of fourteen-year-old Jawad Ali in Jackson Park, seventeen-year-old journalism student Safiya Mirza begins investigating the murder and ends up confronting white supremacy in her own high school.
The story is narrated mostly by Safiya, a Muslim girl who attends a wealthy private school on scholarship, but Jawad, our main victim of islamophobia, jumps in every once in a while to give insights into his life and death. At times I found myself starting to shake my head in disbelief over certain passages because the hate and fear was all too glaring it seemed unreal. But that is simply where a reader with privileges our protagonist does not have needs to pay extra attention. Because while this is a work of fiction, unfortunately the hate and phobias that it lays bare are not and it is good to be reminded of them, and to let them make you feel uneasy. This is a moderately fast paced book, and while the ending didn't come as a total surprise, I appreciated the details that the author added to round it out. Hollow Fires is ultimately a call to not ignore the microaggressions that we see all around us, and to protect our youth from radical ideology and groups that would prey on them for their own gain.
If you like Hollow Fires, you might also like:
By Hanna Alkaf
Salaam Reads, 2022. 294 pages. Young Adult Fiction
When her late best friend's formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again during the Scrabble competition, with cryptic messages suggesting that her death was no accident, Najwa Bakri, surrounded by suspects, must find out who's behind these mysterious posts.
By Katie Zhao
Bloomsbury, 2022. 294 pages. Young Adult Fiction
While attending the prestigious Brookings University, Anna Xu looks into her childhood babysitter's unsolved murder, which brings about a threat on her life, leading her to her rival, Chris Lu, the victim of a hate crime surprisingly linked to her investigation.
RBL
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