Internment

Resistance is never futile. ( )

This speculative fiction is set five minutes into the future. Samira Ahmed does little to disguise the fact that the United States she is writing about is the one we are currently living in, with a President like the one who is currently (and hopefully not for much longer) in office.

Her anger is palpable and comes through in her main character,Layla, a Muslim teenager. The basic plot is that the President has decided that Muslims are a threat to security, and like the Japanese in WWII, and the immigrants seeking refuge at our borders, they need to be corralled and detained. The detention center, Mobius, is literally set down the road from Manzanar, where the Japanese were interned. There is nothing subtle about this story. It whacks you between the eyes with the unfairness and cruelty of the detention of innocent, law-abiding citizens who happen to be Muslim. The man in charge of this is a monster of a human being, someone who anyone would have no trouble hating.

I think it would be fine for younger teens, but as an adult reading it, it was just too obvious, like some other reviewer somewhere said, too much like an after-school special. ( )

Unfortunately, I found the narrative to be lacking finesse. For a novel that has a good and timely message, there were many issues with the writing. Layla’s constant worrying about her boyfriend, her dramatic and reckless actions, the almost clichéd literary allusions, and the stereotypical cast of characters made me dislike the book more the longer it got. I did appreciate the reference to the White Rose group’s actions in World War II, but throughout the book Ahmed tells the reader much more than she shows. She does not give the reader the chance to think for themselves; considering that this is a book marketed to teens, I think that is a big misstep. On the whole, the book feels forced, and it could have been written so much better, perhaps in the hands of another writer. ( )

Premise: YES. Execution: Meh. Dialogue really did it in for me— so over the top. BUT I did inhale it in one sitting, heart in my throat. ( )

RGG: Despite the clunky prose and the implausibility of some of the ending events, the importance, the currency, and the historical references make this a worthwhile read. Reading Interest: 13-YA.