Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed

Hollow Fires follows Safiya, a budding journalist, as she investigates what really happened to a local fourteen year old Jawad, after he was labelled ‘Bomb boy’ for building a cosplay jet pack and is later found dead.

This is a very powerful book which obviously stems from the real life story of a boy labelled a terrorist for building a clock at school. Focusing around the appalling reaction this boy receives and the racism in the media and community, this book questions the attitudes because of Jawad’s skin colour. Jawad’s voice guides Safiya throughout this book as she tries to find out what really happened to him, as she doesn’t believe the story that he ran away, and figures out who she can trust in her community. Although there is a mystery element throughout this, as Safiya works to uncover the truth, but at its heart this book is about the tragedy and emotion behind a death, and the characters have the most impact on this story.

A beautifully written book with an important focus on the racism, Islamophobia, and and bigotry that is still ruining lives in America and the rest of the world.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really wanted to love this book. It was like a cruise ship version of mortal engines. Clearly influenced by covid, I enjoyed how it went straight into the action. However, I couldn’t warm to the characters and the layout of the boat / the different fractions in the boat soon became confusing.

I really enjoyed Hollow Fires!
It was an absolutely heartbreaking read and I will be recommending this book to everyone!
Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Jawad Ali was accused and exonerated as a terrorist when he was 14 years old, for bringing in a homemade cosplay jet pack based on an anime character into school. This innocent action on his part creates a long series of events that lead to his murder and a series of racist attacks in his home town. Safiya, also in Chicago, is frustrated at the lack of media attention when Jawad goes missing and begins to fight to keep the story from losing its momentum in the hope that Jawad will be found alive, despite what this costs her scholarship, her reputation and her relationship with the charming and understanding Richard. As Jawads ghost whispers to Safiya to find him, she must put herself in danger to uncover the truth.
An absolutely heartbreaking story, inspired by true events and the inequality of the American justice system. How rich white lads are perceived as innocent and incapable of plotting and carrying out a series of racially motivated crimes and how an innocent child of refugees has the opposite experience.

The concept of this book is so interesting and the message is clear and important. Safiya is a curious and intelligent girl on a mission to find out what happened to Jawad, after he was falsely accused and consequently bullied after. This book focuses on Islamophobia and the suspicions many Muslims felt and the difficulty of growing up during this era. It reads YA, but it is a good story and wraps up nicely.

After reading a previous work by this author (Internment) I couldn't wait to read this one. Not very often you come across an author that isn't afraid to go there or tell the true experiences of those that are from the South Asian diaspora.

Story
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.

My Thoughts
This is a solid 4/5 and it is definitely a YA novel. It has some great strengths and weaknesses. I wish I could give this a 5 but the constant change of narrator, from Safiya to Jawad to newspaper articles to tweets just made this a little disjointed.
You can tell this was a hard book to write for the author especially with the backdrop of current events in the US and Afghanistan. However, I feel the book suffers slightly due to this. However, it will likely appeal to the wider YA audience with no issue.

I was intrigued to learn that this was based on a real case from the 40's and just updated for the modern age.

It is worth the read to understand how small things add up and how societal biases affect everything.

In a Nutshell: Excellent intent. Needed slightly better execution. Will work well for its target YA readers.

Story:
Safiya Mirza is a journalism student. As an Indian-origin scholarship student who is also a Muslim, she finds herself facing biases on a regular basis but she tries not to let them affect her. But soon, the attacks start becoming more personal. This is when she discovers the body of Jawad in an abandoned corner of a local park.
Fourteen year old Jawad, the son of Iraqi refugees, was a brilliant inventor However, his life changes for the worse when a teacher mistakes his homebuilt cosplay jetpack for a bomb and calls 911. This innocent invention gets Jawad arrested, labelled “Bomb Boy”, and eventually killed.
Jawad’s voice reaches out to Safiya even from the beyond. Safiya feels the need to discover the truth but whom can she trust? Is she herself safe when her school too isn’t immune to hate crimes? Will Jawad and his family get justice?


Where the book worked for me:
✔ The book begins with small one-liner definitions of ‘fact’, ‘alternative fact’, ‘truth’ and ‘lie’. Every chapter having Safiya’s narrative begins with some simple but deep statements based on the above. I loved this idea. Every single one of these entries was thought-provoking. They reminded me of the anonymous adage, “Stupidity is knowing the truth, seeing the truth but still believing the lies.”
✔ Ahmed’s writing is very poetic, though the topic is dire. Especially when she is writing about nature, she creates beautiful visuals.
✔ The book goes much beyond typical racial discrimination stories. It analyses Islamaphobia through various angles. Having characters from varied Islamic backgrounds (Arab, Indian, African) also helps build a multi-faceted analysis of this unfortunately common prejudice of recent years. The social commentary in the book, though a tad OTT especially towards the end, is excellent.
✔ The writing style reminded me a lot of “A good girl’s guide to murder”. Safiya has a similar daredevil kind of approach as Pippa, the teen protagonist of the Holly Jackson novel. Both of them focus on research, both jump in alone where they shouldn’t be, both have a great group of supportive friends. The presentation of both the books is also similar, with them both containing an investigative journalism sort of vibe. This works for the story. (Though I must also say, Holly Jackson handles this aspect slightly better.)
✔ Jawad is a character who can’t be ignored. His heartfelt pleas to Safiya, his memories of his parents, his puzzlement at being singled out as a terrorist, his regret at a future that was never meant to be,… all show him to be a vulnerable boy whose life was cut off before it even began. His family is the best portrayed in the book, followed closely by Safiya’s parents.
✔ There are some great one-liners that will make you pause and ponder.
✔ Jawad’s murder is based on a real life murder case of 1924. I read the details of this case online and was surprised to see how well the author has transposed the historical details into this contemporary fictional plot and raised it to a whole new level by adding the elements of white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and racial discrimination.


Where the book could have worked better for me:
❌ I wasn’t a fan of the plot construction. The book has multiple narrative voices - the first person perspectives of Safiya and Jawad (speaking from beyond life), and also many third-party investigative reports such as newspaper articles, police investigations and podcasts. In addition, the story isn’t linear and goes back and forth through 2021 to 2023. The abrupt changes between these was confusing.
❌ The book is pretty slow-paced in the first half.
❌ The identity of the murderer will not leave most adult readers surprised, it is so predictable! I guess only those teens/YAs who don’t read many thrillers will be caught unawares at the big reveal.
<spoiler>⚠ Other than Safiya’s friend Rachel (who is a white Jew), there’s no good ‘white’ character in the story (as far as I could make out. The race of some characters wasn’t specified.) Seems like a kind of reverse discrimination.
⚠ Safiya discovers Jawad’s body as he (His ghost? His soul?) is communicating the location to her. So my query is, if Jawad could tell Safiya where to find his corpse, why could he also not tell her who killed him or how it happened? Especially when he knew that she was so close to danger? This was too big a loophole for me and the main reason I couldn’t go higher in my rating. </spoiler>


All in all, despite my issues with the writing style, the book still offered an insightful reading experience. This was my first book by this author but I feel like exploring more of her works. Recommended to Young Adults who want to read about a serious contemporary issue. Older readers can also give this a try but not as a crime thriller. More as a social drama.

4.25 stars.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for the DRC of “Hollow Fires”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Hollow Fires is based on a true story, one I'm not even sure I heard about. But you can bet I'll be reading up on it later, and starting with the book the author recommended in the historical note.

That true case was "adapted" for modern times, and I think it was done very well.

While reading I thought there was no way someone could be so hateful, that they would go to such lengths to murder a fourteen year old boy, but it happened, it's happening right now, and it will continue to happen until something changes.

This book pushes all of those issues front and centre, and for that reason it's an important read.

There's commentary on pretty much everything, from racism and islamophobia, to patriarchy, bigotry, misogyny and ring wing politics.

I liked the journalism aspect of it all, and the format too. And especially the parts where nobody would listen to Safiya because she was a kid, even though she had evidence and (correct) suspicions about the killer, that rang true.

What I didn't like is the time jumping. It happened with both perspectives, Safiya's and Jawad's. Eventually I just rolled with it, but it took me a few moments to remember that no, this didn't happen YET, it was just a flash forward etc.

And it was also predictable in relation to the killer, but it would be perfect for younger teens who haven't read a lot of thrillers/mysteries yet.

There was even a cameo appearance by a certain...character who's named after a famous person. I'm trying not to reveal too much here, so bear with me. It was a nice surprise, one I wasn't expecting.

And finally Jawad's ghost. The scenes that tied Jawad to Safiya back when he was alive were beautiful, and tear inducing, so it makes sense that if he appeared as a ghost to anyone it would be Safiya. I just wish we knew how it was possible that she could see ghosts, it seems a bit out of place in a contemporary novel.

This was my first Samira Ahmed novel, and I think it's about time I check the others out too.

*Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

Due for release in early May, I’m grateful to NetGalley for giving me access to this prior to publication. From start to finish this had me hooked, and I think it is Ahmed’s most powerful book to date.
It’s easy to feel outrage at the kind of privilege shown throughout this book. It’s easy to feel angered by the behaviour of the two young adults who plan, carry out and almost get away with their murder of a younger teen. It’s easy to feel the fire of injustice that forces Safiya into action. But it’s also easy for many readers (and I probably count myself in this) to feel that anger and yet to not be further impacted by it. This is not part of my daily experience, and I fear that my ‘fire’ as I finished this book could be seen as ‘hollow’ if I don’t do anything with it. This is something I need to digest further.
The story of Hollow Fires itself is a compelling one. It begins when Jawad, son of Iraqi refugees, is arrested when his English teacher believes the home-made Halloween costume he proudly takes into school is a suicide bomb. The absurdity of this situation stands out…but even after being cleared of all charges, Jawad is persecuted. He becomes known by the moniker BombBoy and the growing sense of unease felt by students who are not white is deftly portrayed through the character of Safiya. When Jawad goes missing, there is an appeal but the police quickly write him off as a run-away.
Safiya has always wanted to be a journalist and she has an inquisitive nature that doesn’t allow her to blindly accept some of the things she’s told by those in authority. She is determined that people should not accept this version of events. Set against a growing backdrop of racially-motivated attacks, Safiya is convinced there is more to Jawad’s disappearance. When she finds his body wedged in a culvert in a little known part of the local park, Safiya knows that there’s more to this story than people are prepared to acknowledge. She takes it upon herself to try and get justice for Jawad, determined that those responsible will be held to account.
There are issues with the way Safiya interferes with an ongoing investigation. The way certain characters behaved didn’t always seem realistic, and there’s still a part of me that feels the outcome of this case would not, in reality, have gone quite as it’s presented here. However, these were not enough of a distraction to prevent me from feeling this is a book I would highly recommend.

An emotive and important book. You will rage. You will cry. This is such a good book for school libraries - it should be essential teenage reading.

When journalist-in-training Safiya's school paper is hacked it's the start of a chilling chain of events. Racist graffiti, a missing teenager and a ghostly voice on the wind asking Safiya for help. It will take all of Safiya's journalist skills, and courage, to get to work out what's really going on, before she finds herself in danger too.

Hollow Fires explores a broad range of difficult but necessary subjects, such as hate speech, racism, privilege and online radicalisation. Reading it would be a great way to start conversations on so many different topics teenagers face today.

It's also written in a fantastic format. Safiya and Jawad's stories are interspersed with articles, phone transcripts and tweets. They come from a number of viewpoints and perspectives (sometimes making for difficult reading).

One of the things I loved best about Hate, Love and Other Filters was how Maya's passion for photography shaped every word. I could definitely say the same for Safiya and journalism - it isn't a hobby in name only, but the thing that shapes her entire character and means her every decision makes perfect sense.

I raced through this twist-filled, fast-paced YA novel and would absolutely recommend it.

Great book, I loved this read.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

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.

First of all I wanted to say this book deserved four stars, and it’s by no fault of it’s own that it didn’t get that from me-I just didn’t connect to one perspective of the dual chapters as much as I thought I would.
Above all, however, it was powerful, poignant, and extremely prominent to our terrifying current events that are sadly history never going away.
I connected so deeply to Jawad and often hoped he’d get a better future then remembered he couldn’t and was devastated all over again.
His chapters, for me, were the most vivid and intense and better written.
He was brought to life-so to speak-so well, so tenderly and tragically and his voice will stick with me for a while- all there was a immense and extremely dedicated amount of research gone into this book.
However, I felt that although his chapters had such great depth and description explored and that he really felt so real to me, I didn’t find myself feeling Safiya was so well formed compared.
She felt a little flat, and although she was relatable and a great character with a wonderful head on her shoulders and a brave heart inside of her, I felt she could’ve had more depth and her chapters were a little stale and not as engaging for me,
Overall it was deeply moving and powerful and I would like to reread it one day, and I also hope it becomes a successful book because the events that happen inside are certainly not fictional and these kind of terrible, disgusting crimes are usually swept away and they shouldn’t-they should Bon as many billboards,documentaries, podcasts, and news channels as the crimes against innocent young white boys-because a young boy like Jawad is just as important and irreplaceable, and he didn’t deserve anything that happened to him just as much as George Stinney, Emmett Till, Timothy Coggins, or Tamir Rice didn’t deserve either. Those black and brown faces that people around us don’t feel as heartbroken for or don’t advocate as much time, money, and energy to as much as JonBenet, James Bulger, or Madeline McCann is evidence enough we have to change how we see these crimes.
They were all innocent, terrified young boys and girls who didn’t deserve to die regardless of their skin colour, their parent’s history, or the fact that people gossiped one had past crimes or another didn’t.

This is my first book by the author, and one thing is very clear to me: she has something to say. She doesn't shy away from harsh truths, whether it's related to the politics within the US that cause suffering in other countries, Islamophobia, racism, and double standards, or the discrimination between Muslims based on what sect they belong to. That's something I can definitely appreciate.

The story is told through two perspectives: Safiya, an aspiring journalist determined to get to the truth behind the string of threats and attacks on Muslims within her community, and Jawad, a young Iraqi boy who was murdered. Jawad's chapters, while shorter, almost always landed like a punch. Reading his perspective was honestly heartbreaking, and not only because we discover early on that he is dead, long before anyone thinks of his disappearance as more than a possible kidnapping. The discrimination he faced made my blood boil, and I wish incidents like this were fiction. Unfortunately, this is reality for a lot of Muslims living in the supposed lands of the free.

Safiya's perspective was focused more on trying to find the perpetrator behind the attacks, hampered by a school principal who staunchly denies that anything is wrong. The pacing of the mystery is pretty satisfying, and although I called the twist pretty early on, that didn't detract from the story.

There's a mixed media element here, where we get to see news articles and blog posts from different perspectives related to the Islamophobic attacks and Jawad's disappearance. I thought they were interesting until the very end; the last chapter is mostly written in this style, and it became too much for me to enjoy. Each chapter also starts with a mix of facts, truths, alternative facts, and lies. Unfortunately, this didn't work for me. Some of them were very vague, and others were too on the nose.

As is often the case when it comes to books with Muslim characters, I was left wanting more from the representation. There aren't a lot of references to the Muslim characters practicing their faith, and I've lost count of how many fictional Muslim girls end up dating a white, non-Muslim guy.

Hollow Fires truly is a book that burns bright.

This is a book that reflects the horrific realities of our time and really interrogates privilege, bystanderism and structural racism. It also delves into online radicalisation and invokes some of the worst events surrounding white supremacy in recent memory. Ahmed blends these doses of real life with a claustrophobic and tense narrative. It speaks to the ‘ideal victim’, racial bias and way in which certain events are skewed by the media and wider society. This is not a book you can put down or look away. Ahmed’s writing is fierce and commanding, making you listen and confront this insidious monstrosity. It trembles with rage against these hatreds hiding beneath a veneer of societal acceptability. Ahmed questions the way in which the white supremacy and racist ideologies presented are allowed and encouraged to continue.

Personally, I loved the mixed media narrative structure and the way Ahmed blended the voices of Safiya and Jawad. She combines transcripts, newspaper articles and statements to create an overarching view and thread in real statistics and information. This approach is layered and again allows for reality to enter the book, reminding you that this is not a book divorced from the world. Instead this is a book that holds up an unrelenting mirror. Safiya’s journalism reflects this, with her passion and drive to advocate for the truth driving much of her work. That integrity is commendable and generally, she is a character you cannot help but fall in love with. Her tenacity is incredible, but Ahmed also highlights her vulnerabilities and the way this racist society impacts up on her everyday life. Jawad’s experiences mirror this and depicts a story we unfortunately know all too well. His voice was surprisingly hopeful and emotionally fraught, again making you love him and wish for Safiya to discover the truth.

Hollow Fires is a book that demands you listen and actively be the change you wish to see in the world. Being a passive bystander is to ignore the violent reality of racism, white supremacy and hatred.

Overall a 4 star review for enjoying this book.

I feel this book would definitely be enjoyed by YA readers as I felt slightly too old to be reading this. While it felt predictable as to who the murderer was, this almost added to the chilling undercurrent throughout the book as I felt I was just waiting for these characters to drop their act and reveal their true natures. The social commentary throughout was well done and the characters felt authentic in their interactions with each other when discussing Islamophobia and other hate crime behaviours.

**SPOILER** Reading the historical note at the end of the novel shed further horrors when Samira Ahmed explained that the murder of Jawad is based on the murder of Bobby Franks. The parallels were kept very similar which made everything feel so much more chilling, and I imagine a reread of this book with this knowledge would be interesting to spot the foreshadowing details that I had not known about.

I felt the chapters were very choppy between Safiya and Jawad, at times barely being a page long before we swapped into the next character's POV which made it difficult for me to immerse myself into the correct narrative voice, however this may just be my personal preference.

I loved how other mediums were incorporated into the book, including news articles and interviews that broke up the book and gave us information. I feel like it really added to the investigative journalism/documentary vibe.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This heartfelt and thought-provoking story broke me. Beautifully written and unceasingly compelling, Hollow Fires is already one of my favourite books of all time. A tear-jerker, part murder mystery, part ghost story, part coming-of-age, part social commentary. It addresses so many important and horrific topics (such as racism, classicism, Islamophobia and alt-right propaganda) that it could have gone so wrong so fast. But it didn’t. With an ingenious format and lyrical prose, Samira Ahmed not only shines a light on the evil that exists among us and the silent complicity of the privileged; but she also inspires us to be the change we want to see in the world.

The 17-year-old Desi Muslim Safiya Mirza is an aspiring journalist and the editor of her school’s newspaper. Son of Iraqi immigrants, Jawad Ali was a 14-year-old Muslim boy who went missing after being racially profiled as a terrorist by his English teacher. When Safiya starts hearing unsettling whispers, she listens and starts her own investigation. With Jawad’s haunting voice guiding her, Safiya seeks to tell the whole truth about his disappearance, and it’s exciting to bear witness to her will and perseverance. And of course, when real-world events become the backbone of speculative storytelling, it’s impossible to read it and come out unscarred.

From blog posts to text messages to journal entries to interview transcripts, it’s impressive how Ahmed masterfully weaves it all together to tell us such a poignant story. The last few chapters toss me into a rollercoaster of emotions and frantic weeping. And even though I suspected the eventual murderer when there was still no reason to, I remember all along wishing I was wrong. I cried so much for Jawad, Safiya, and all the historically marginalized groups of people who are constantly trampled on by authority, bigot assholes and especially wolfs in sheep’s clothing. I will never forget Hollow Fires and will always do my best to help those in need.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Little, Brown and Samira Ahmed for providing me with the eARC. I’m leaving this 100% honest review voluntarily. I will share it on Goodreads, Storygraph, BookHype, BookBub and Amazon more or less than two weeks before the first release date.

Hollow fires

Wow. This book. It broke my heart and not just because it was beautifully written, but because the issues surrounding our characters are sadly so true in how our society is in real life. The relevance, the importance of this book is impossible for me to explain.

It was haunting. It was real. It was heartbreaking, yet enlightening.

The author wrote it beautifully. The elegance of the prose weaved around the story was executed perfectly. It didn’t take away from the message, only added to its haunting tone.

The characters were real and so well written. The author really climbed into their heads, their voices distinct. My heart ached for Jawad — the way he didn’t understand what had happened, why he was killed. I thought the author did a great job of conveying that emotion and the innocence he still had. It really made the story come to life differently because he felt so much like a real person. Safiya was the perfect protagonist to tell this story — honest, brutally so, and so tenacious about getting to the truth, no matter what it cost her.

I did struggle with the format a little. I found difficult to follow in parts as there are sections of the book written at different times. I still got the general gist despite that, though. However, it may have just been me as I get confused easily, as the author made it clear with dates!

I will definitely be checking out the authors other works because their talent for writing and storytelling is unreal (in fact I have already purchased one of their other books!) Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher for a chance to read and review this book.