Hollow Fires - Samira Ahmed

Author: Samira Ahmed

Genre: YA, Contemporary Drama

Rating: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: Excellent intent. Needed slightly better execution. Will work well for its target YA readers.

Story:

Safiya Mirza is a journalism student. As an Indian-origin scholarship student who is also a Muslim, she finds herself facing biases on a regular basis but she tries not to let them affect her. But soon, the attacks start becoming more personal. This is when she discovers the body of Jawad in an abandoned corner of a local park.

Fourteen year old Jawad, the son of Iraqi refugees, was a brilliant inventor However, his life changes for the worse when a teacher mistakes his homebuilt cosplay jetpack for a bomb and calls 911. This innocent invention gets Jawad arrested, labelled “Bomb Boy”, and eventually killed.

Jawad’s voice reaches out to Safiya even from the beyond. Safiya feels the need to discover the truth but whom can she trust? Is she herself safe when her school too isn’t immune to hate crimes? Will Jawad and his family get justice?

Where the book worked for me:

✔ The book begins with small one-liner definitions of ‘fact’, ‘alternative fact’, ‘truth’ and ‘lie’. Every chapter having Safiya’s narrative begins with some simple but deep statements based on the above. I loved this idea. Every single one of these entries was thought-provoking. They reminded me of the anonymous adage, “Stupidity is knowing the truth, seeing the truth but still believing the lies.”

✔ Ahmed’s writing is very poetic, though the topic is dire. Especially when she is writing about nature, she creates beautiful visuals.

✔ The book goes much beyond typical racial discrimination stories. It analyses Islamaphobia through various angles. Having characters from varied Islamic backgrounds (Arab, Indian, African) also helps build a multi-faceted analysis of this unfortunately common prejudice of recent years. The social commentary in the book, though a tad OTT especially towards the end, is excellent.

✔ The writing style reminded me a lot of “A Good Girl's Guide to Murder”. Safiya has a similar daredevil kind of approach as Pippa, the teen protagonist of the Holly Jackson novel. Both of them focus on research, both jump in alone where they shouldn’t be, both have a great group of supportive friends. The presentation of both the books is also similar, with them both containing an investigative journalism sort of vibe. This works for the story. (Though I must also say, Holly Jackson handles this aspect slightly better.)

✔ Jawad is a character who can’t be ignored. His heartfelt pleas to Safiya, his memories of his parents, his puzzlement at being singled out as a terrorist, his regret at a future that was never meant to be,… all show him to be a vulnerable boy whose life was cut off before it even began. His family is the best portrayed in the book, followed closely by Safiya’s parents.

✔ There are some great one-liners that will make you pause and ponder.

✔ Jawad’s murder is based on a real life murder case of 1924. I read the details of this case online and was surprised to see how well the author has transposed the historical details into this contemporary fictional plot and raised it to a whole new level by adding the elements of white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and racial discrimination.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

❌ I wasn’t a fan of the plot construction. The book has multiple narrative voices - the first person perspectives of Safiya and Jawad (speaking from beyond life), and also many third-party investigative reports such as newspaper articles, police investigations and podcasts. In addition, the story isn’t linear and goes back and forth through 2021 to 2023. The abrupt changes between these was confusing.

❌ The book is pretty slow-paced in the first half.

❌ The identity of the murderer will not leave most adult readers surprised, it is so predictable! I guess only those teens/YAs who don’t read many thrillers will be caught unawares at the big reveal.

MINOR SPOILERS BELOW IN RED

⚠ Other than Safiya’s friend Rachel (who is a white Jew), there’s no good ‘white’ character in the story (as far as I could make out. The race of some characters wasn’t specified.) Seems like a kind of reverse discrimination.

⚠ Safiya discovers Jawad’s body as he (His ghost? His soul?) is communicating the location to her. So my query is, if Jawad could tell Safiya where to find his corpse, why could he also not tell her who killed him or how it happened? Especially when he knew that she was so close to danger? This was too big a loophole for me and the main reason I couldn’t go higher in my rating.

All in all, despite my issues with the writing style, the book still offered an insightful reading experience. This was my first book by this author but I feel like exploring more of her works. Recommended to Young Adults who want to read about a serious contemporary issue. Older readers can also give this a try but not as a crime thriller. More as a social drama.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for the DRC of “Hollow Fires”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.