Hollow Fires
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
'Powerful, timely and relentlessly compelling. HOLLOW FIRES burns brightly with Samira Ahmed's trademark blend of thought-provoking social relevance, heartfelt coming-of-age and whip-smart plotting' Karen McManus, author of ONE OF US IS LYING
Safiya Mirza dreams of becoming a journalist. One thing she's learned as editor of her school newspaper is that a journalist's job is to find the facts and not let personal bias affect the story: but that changes the day she discovers Jawad.
Jawad Ali was just fourteen when a teacher saw him wearing a cosplay jetpack and mistook it for a bomb. A mistake that got Jawad arrested, labelled a terrorist - 'Bomb Boy' - and eventually killed. But who was the young boy behind the headlines?
With Jawad's haunting voice guiding her throughout her investigation, Safiya seeks to tell the whole truth about the murdered boy and those who killed him.
A powerful story of our times, Hollow Fires exposes the evil that hides in plain sight and the silent complicity of privileged bystanders who use alternative facts to bend the truth to their liking.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When high school freshman Jawad Ali, the son of Iraqi refugees to the U.S., crafts a model jet pack for Halloween, he's excited to showcase the approved makerspace project to his classmates and teachers. But the things go badly wrong with the costume: mistaken for wearing "something like a suicide bomber vest," Jawad is marched out in handcuffs and suspended from school. Then, after receiving a series of threatening texts, he's murdered. But Jawad's ghost remains, communicating with 17-year-old Indian American Safiya Mirza, an aspiring journalist who grows to believe in their connection, and whom he leads to his body in a neglected area of Jackson Park. Spurred on by his spirit, Safiya works to solve the murder, a journey that forces her to face dark truths about their community, in which a festering hatred has led to threats against her mosque. Writing in dual perspectives that highlight Jawad's innocence and Safiya's determination amid personal themes of romance and friendship, Ahmed (Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know) weaves evocative prose with images, articles, and text messages to explore with skill and depth the twining of social media in an age of misinformation, alt-right political movements, and racism and Islamophobia. Ages 12–up.
