Layla was a regular American teenager until the new Islamophobic president enacted Exclusion Laws.

Muslims are being rounded up, their books burned, and their bodies encoded with identification numbers. Neighbors are divided, and the government is going after resisters. Layla and her family are interned in the California desert along with thousands of other Muslim Americans, but she refuses to accept the circumstances of her detention, plotting to take down the system. She quickly learns that resistance is no joke: Two hijabi girls are beaten and dragged away screaming after standing up to the camp director. There are rumors of people being sent to black-op sites. Some guards seem sympathetic, but can they be trusted? Taking on Islamophobia and racism in a Trump-like America, Ahmed’s (Love, Hate & Other Filters, 2018) magnetic, gripping narrative, written in a deeply humane and authentic tone, is attentive to the richness and complexity of the social ills at the heart of the book. Layla grows in consciousness as she begins to understand her struggle not as an individual accident of fate, but as part of an experience of oppression she shares with millions. This work asks the question many are too afraid to confront: What will happen if xenophobia and racism are allowed to fester and grow unabated?

A reminder that even in a world filled with divisions and right-wing ideology, young people will rise up and demand equality for all. (Realistic fiction. 13-18)

-Kirkus Review

I really wanted to like this book. I really think the ideas in this book are important and need to be discussed and portrayed in more and more books.
What you have is a timely and important set of topics that need a spotlight shone on it. What you also have is a protagonist that just seems not only ill-equipped to shine that light but not a rallying force that could. There were other characters, less obsessed with their boyfriend that they had no chemistry with, that I think would have been more interesting and believable. It's not a horrible book. It's an easy read. It had the potential to be so much more than what it ended up as. When there are gaping flaws that degrade the potential of what could be a great story it becomes frustrating and sad.
Read it because of what it could be. Set your expectations low because of what it is. ( )

A strong, sad, frightening, hopeful tale of contemporary internment.. My college sophomore granddaughter gave it to me with orders to read it. So I did. It was a good investment of my time. ( )

a page-turning young adult novel that tackles heavy yet important issues, tackles sensitive issues such as racism and Islamophobia, because of this, this book will not only be best for older readers but for readers who can handle mature content, the dystopian future makes this book a very curious and interesting one, deals with the life in an internment camp and the struggles that are being faced with living there

Totally on board with the message of this book, but the way it was presented felt very heavy-handed and unrealistic. ( )