Interment by Samira Ahmed

Author : Samira Ahmed
Title : Internment
Published : 2019
Publisher : Atom
Pages : 400
Genre : Young Adult

     Rebellions are built on hope. Set in a horrifying 'fifteen minutes in the future' United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin is forced into an internment camp for Muslim-Americans along with her parents. With the help of newly-made friends also trapped within the camp, her boyfriend on the outside, and an unexpected alliance, Layla begins a journey to fight for freedom, leading a revolution against the internment camp's Director and his guards. Heart-racing and emotional, Internment questions the imaginary boundaries that separate us and challenges readers to fight the complicit silence that exists in our society today.

     This is a book I came to with slight trepidation, It deals with a subject the many are starting to worry may become a reality for Muslims living in America. It is a heavy thing to deal with and if not done right would be a great tragedy and a wasted opportunity. Luckily when it comes to Internment for me it seems to have been put into the right author's hands. Samira tackles the subject with such an earnest and thought-provoking style that is hard not to get wrapped up in the plight of her heroine. For some, this is a vision of America's future that sits just around the corner. With camps already set up to hold those who have come to there country looking for a better life, the thought that this could then be expanded to anyone that the government sees as a threat is one that is all too real. And this is how we first come to be in the presence of Layla Amin. 

      This book takes a very real look at what might be but it brings in a level of dystopian future. In this case, it all depends on the color of your skin and who you choose to pray to. So as with all good dystopian novels, you need a strong and well-centered lead. Layla delivers on this promise giving us someone who not only is part f this injustice but also a young women who does not want to sit idly by and watch those she cares for disappear in a river of blood. This is also her fight for the soul of America. We all know the words that grace the statue of liberty, there is I suspect very few people in this modern age that do not. So what happens when a few choices that this no longer applies. I hope that there are still enough good people fighting the cause that the future this book posit's will not come to pass.  But with that said it is also a war on a much smaller scale one to keep her family together and safe. This family's tale in a battle against the director of the camp they find themselves in is a mirror for something much bigger. What binds them together and the love they have for each other radiates out into there world to give hope to others and in turn each person it ouch does the same spreading out like the rays of the sun. 

     This author shows a great deal of skill in how she pervades her story, it is a book that deals with something that is all too real. It has happened time and again over the past hundred or so years. When in times of crises it is all too easy to blame the problems of any country on a smaller subset which lives within it. To single them out as the cause for all that causes pain. And people time and again have been shown to go along with it for whatever reason they give. From my own country using them in Africa to  Nazi Germany and America, it's self with the Japanese in World War two and obviously in more recent years. It is a worrying trend that seems to repeat over and over again. Since Nine Eleven it has been that of every Muslim across the world. This is the problem when a small minority twist the words used for betterment into something that only brings pain and suffering. In this book, it shows what happens when good people do nothing. The holds up an image of our own dark ugliness. But if it stopped there it would be all far too dark to read. Here she shows us that ancient light that burns deep. At times it may seem like it has gone for the world that all hope has diapered. But I feel it never truly goes away some carry it hidden protecting it choosing the right moment to let it free and save us all.

     This book at first glance may seem like yet another young adult novel of a world turned upside down. I superpose it gives us an easier way into a subject that is very dark and more relevant in America than in the past fifty years. We all like to think if we had been in Nazi Germany at the time we would have stood up and said something. So here is Layla a young woman how is having to fight every day to stay sane and alive.  She is an amazingly crafted lead that shows humanity much like the flowers in a garden will find a way to bloom. This is a book about love and compassion and that even in your darkest hours you have to fight like hell to make sure something better will come of it.  And that for me is what the best of these novels do, this one included it gives hope.