Genre: Children’s lit
Medium: Paperback, ARC
Synopsis: Sarah-Mary isn’t too concerned with the state of Muslim-American relations in this alternate universe where America has internment camps for Muslim citizens. Mostly because she doesn’t know any. That is, until she stumbles upon a Muslim woman hiding in her car with a very large bounty on her head.
Review: I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I want to like it a lot because it teaches first tolerance, and later acceptance throughout the course of the book. And that’s an important message that needs to be shared among anti-Muslim folks, and that’s why there needs to be a character such as Sarah-Mary to be the spokesperson for that character arc. On the other hand, white saviourism. And why is this in an alternate universe America practically paralleling Japanese internment camps or the Holocaust? Are Muslims not persecuted enough in the United States?
On the literary side, I think a little more worldbuilding could have been useful to help raise the stakes. And unfortunately, Sarah-Mary fell a little flat for me. I really enjoyed all of the other characters though–there was plenty to help flesh out those characters that I didn’t quite see in the same way with Sarah-Mary. Also, what happened with her mother?? That was a really compelling sideplot for me, and I’m a little sad that that storyline wasn’t tied off.
Overall, it was an okay book. I appreciated what it was trying to do, though I can’t exactly be positive whether it succeeded in doing it.
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