Hollow Fires
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
This powerful, gripping thriller from a New York Times bestselling author shows the insidious nature of racism, the terrible costs of unearthing hidden truths—and the undeniable power of hope.
Safiya Mirza dreams of becoming a journalist. And 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 biases affect the story. But all that changes the day she finds the body of a murdered boy.
Jawad Ali was fourteen years old when he built a cosplay jetpack that a teacher mistook for a bomb. A jetpack that got him arrested, labeled a terrorist—and eventually killed. But he’s more than a dead body, and more than “Bomb Boy.” He was a person with a life worth remembering.
Driven by 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 because of their hate-based beliefs.
This gripping and powerful book uses an innovative format and lyrical prose to expose the evil that exists in front of us, and the silent complicity of the privileged who create 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.
