This book is plain garbage. It is every left wing talking point, some not even relative to the story, just a way to take shots. The ironic part to me is the author is complaining about a hateful and divisive government; yet, then her book screams hate and division. Her disdain for white people couldn't be more clear. Once you get past the liberal agenda, the story itself is Twilight meets the Hunger Games....Not very impressive or even creative for that matter! My biggest issue is the young demographic the novel seems to target (The book is located in the TEEN section of the library). I find that to be the most appalling feature! Young, influential, and maybe uneducated, minds being told lies to create fear. Additionally, if a young white teen were to read this, they could hate themselves when all is said and done. Don't waste your time with this one! You get enough of it from the media
This story pretends to be profound, but it's all melodrama with no world-building, to the point where I genuinely could not figure out what decade these events were supposed to be happening in. Given how extreme the premise is, with the U.S. government rounding up Muslim citizens and detaining them in internment camps, I assumed that it was a near-future dystopia, but because the author took great pains to tell us how much the unnamed president was like Trump, I realized that this must be set in the present, but that didn't make sense. Fortunately, other Goodreads reviewers cleared things up. It's a book set in an alternate universe of Trump's administration!
This universe is very, very alternate, because there are no moderates or conservatives in this version of America, just liberals and the alt-right. The racists are one-dimensional and caricatured villains, and even though the book challenges liberals who turn a blind eye to injustice when the stakes are high, nothing about this story world resembles the substance or structure of American politics. One line described a group of policemen as eager to return to the Jim Crow era, but even though virulent racists have become more vocal throughout Trump's campaign and administration, it is offensive and delusional for the author to write as if this hateful group encompasses America at large. Does she really believe that liberal activists are the only Americans who think that minorities should be treated with justice and dignity?
Nothing about this story explained the state of the culture where the character lived. The POV voice waxes eloquent about vaguely defined and sometimes Trump-identifiable political issues, but how did bigoted rhetoric and behaviors during an election led to an outcome this violent, oppressive, and systemic? How did this alternate universe go on such a different track than ours? The author never tells us, and I doubt that she knows, which is the fundamental failure of this book. She wants to make people fear an outcome like this, but to do so, she needs to show us HOW the nation got there, instead of just assuming that because the president tweeted hateful things about Muslims, it naturally follows that they're locked up in internment camps while the rest of the nation looks on in silence. To write a convincing story where Muslims are being rounded up into interment camps because of their faith, not just detained at airports or racially profiled and mistreated in specific contexts by specific people, you have to create a political and cultural environment where something this extreme, nationwide, known, and sanctioned makes sense. She doesn't. She just makes vague political references, like they're supposed to do her job for her.
In addition to the total lack of world-building, there is also no character development. The main character never talked or acted like a teenager, and because she was just a stilted mouthpiece for the author's views, I can't even remember her name. I can see why it might be cathartic for a Muslim American distraught over Trump's administration to write something like this, but it should reside on her disk drive, not on bookstore and library shelves. This is an "important" book, but unfortunately, like many other books described in glowing terms and political approbations, it offers nothing of substance. The author's competent prose flounders under the weight of her story's conceit, and the storytelling style tells, tells, and tells without conveying anything through artistry, subtlety, or mood. Even though the author dramatizes some scenes well, we're mainly just floating along in the character's Politically Woke mind, being told what to think about current political issues within a context that doesn't resemble the America that we live in. This is the kind of novel someone should write in therapy, not the kind of book that people should read if they want to understand where today's political climate is headed.
Even attempts to connect this story with history fell flat. The main character repeatedly references how Japanese Americans suffered in internment camps during WWII, but that occurred in a context where America was at war and was understandably fearful of Japanese spies. It was morally unacceptable and lamentable for the U.S. government to respond to a perceived threat in such a dramatic, oppressive way, but because this story has no context to fill in the gaps for why its alternate universe is so different than ours, the author provides no compelling reason for how political or social events directly led to an outcome like this again. I could not suspend disbelief, because the author provided no rationale other than "Trump is bad!!" for why innocent, upstanding Muslim citizens throughout the country would be rounded up and imprisoned within a passive, predominantly racist nation.
Because the world-building is so abysmal, the author undercuts her own purpose. Throughout this book, my attention was constantly drawn to the over-the-top, poorly explained narrative, rather than to the parallels she intended to draw to how Muslim Americans face suspicion, bigotry, and violence today. This book is incredibly melodramatic and talky, with hardly any convincing action, and the only people who will get anything out of this book are those who would like to read someone else's writing-therapy session. There is nothing new or helpful here for liberals, conservatives don't even exist in this story world, and the racists who resemble the caricatures in this novel are not going to read it, much less feel convicted or challenged by it. They would just denounce this novel as propaganda, and that is one thing that they would be right about.
This story pretends to be profound, but it's all melodrama with no world-building, to the point where I genuinely could not figure out what decade these events were supposed to be happening in. Given how extreme the premise is, with the U.S. government rounding up Muslim citizens and detaining them in internment camps, I assumed that it was a near-future dystopia, but because the author took great pains to tell us how much the unnamed president was like Trump, I realized that this must be set in the present, but that didn't make sense. Fortunately, other Goodreads reviewers cleared things up. It's a book set in an alternate universe of Trump's administration!
This universe is very, very alternate, because there are no moderates or conservatives in this version of America, just liberals and the alt-right. The racists are one-dimensional and caricatured villains, and even though the book challenges liberals who turn a blind eye to injustice when the stakes are high, nothing about this story world resembles the substance or structure of American politics. One line described a group of policemen as eager to return to the Jim Crow era, but even though virulent racists have become more vocal throughout Trump's campaign and administration, it is offensive and delusional for the author to write as if this hateful group encompasses America at large. Does she really believe that liberal activists are the only Americans who think that minorities should be treated with justice and dignity?
Nothing about this story explained the state of the culture where the character lived. The POV voice waxes eloquent about vaguely defined and sometimes Trump-identifiable political issues, but how did bigoted rhetoric and behaviors during an election led to an outcome this violent, oppressive, and systemic? How did this alternate universe go on such a different track than ours? The author never tells us, and I doubt that she knows, which is the fundamental failure of this book. She wants to make people fear an outcome like this, but to do so, she needs to show us HOW the nation got there, instead of just assuming that because the president tweeted hateful things about Muslims, it naturally follows that they're locked up in internment camps while the rest of the nation looks on in silence. To write a convincing story where Muslims are being rounded up into interment camps because of their faith, not just detained at airports or racially profiled and mistreated in specific contexts by specific people, you have to create a political and cultural environment where something this extreme, nationwide, known, and sanctioned makes sense. She doesn't. She just makes vague political references, like they're supposed to do her job for her.
In addition to the total lack of world-building, there is also no character development. The main character never talked or acted like a teenager, and because she was just a stilted mouthpiece for the author's views, I can't even remember her name. I can see why it might be cathartic for a Muslim American distraught over Trump's administration to write something like this, but it should reside on her disk drive, not on bookstore and library shelves. This is an "important" book, but unfortunately, like many other books described in glowing terms and political approbations, it offers nothing of substance. The author's competent prose flounders under the weight of her story's conceit, and the storytelling style tells, tells, and tells without conveying anything through artistry, subtlety, or mood. Even though the author dramatizes some scenes well, we're mainly just floating along in the character's Politically Woke mind, being told what to think about current political issues within a context that doesn't resemble the America that we live in. This is the kind of novel someone should write in therapy, not the kind of book that people should read if they want to understand where today's political climate is headed.
Even attempts to connect this story with history fell flat. The main character repeatedly references how Japanese Americans suffered in internment camps during WWII, but that occurred in a context where America was at war and was understandably fearful of Japanese spies. It was morally unacceptable and lamentable for the U.S. government to respond to a perceived threat in such a dramatic, oppressive way, but because this story has no context to fill in the gaps for why its alternate universe is so different than ours, the author provides no compelling reason for how political or social events directly led to an outcome like this again. I could not suspend disbelief, because the author provided no rationale other than "Trump is bad!!" for why innocent, upstanding Muslim citizens throughout the country would be rounded up and imprisoned within a passive, predominantly racist nation.
Because the world-building is so abysmal, the author undercuts her own purpose. Throughout this book, my attention was constantly drawn to the over-the-top, poorly explained narrative, rather than to the parallels she intended to draw to how Muslim Americans face suspicion, bigotry, and violence today. This book is incredibly melodramatic and talky, with hardly any convincing action, and the only people who will get anything out of this book are those who would like to read someone else's writing-therapy session. There is nothing new or helpful here for liberals, conservatives don't even exist in this story world, and the racists who resemble the caricatures in this novel are not going to read it, much less feel convicted or challenged by it. They would just denounce this novel as propaganda, and that is one thing that they would be right about.
