Reviews with content warning for Islamophobia - Punching the Air

This book was incredibly moving. It made me reflect and question my privilege as a white person. I feel so much empathy and sorrow for young black people who experience this awful cycle of unjust violence.

The way this story is told through poetry and art is amazing. The audiobook is amazing to listen to and really paints a vivid image of Amal’s struggles in the detention centre. The way this story is told in verse is incredibly beautiful and again, listening to the audiobook made it that more impactful to hear.

Overall, an incredibly impactful and moving story.

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anniereads221's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective

5.0

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nothingforpomegranted's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Written in verse from the perspective of sixteen-year-old Amal, this book tells the story of his conviction and imprisonment for beating a white boy into a coma during a neighborhood fight.

Whether or not Amal is guilty remains, in my opinion, an active question throughout the novel, which made his narration all the more engaging and profound, though I am frustrated by the marketing and reviews that describe this as a book about a boy "wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit." Unlike the Central Park Five case on which this story was tangentially based (and in which co-author Yusef Salaam was one of five teens falsely convicted of attacking and raping a young woman), Amal's case involved a fight in which he did participate

, in which he, in fact, threw the first punch

.

Indeed, it is Amal's status as an unreliable narrator and a teenager who straddles the line of right and wrong that makes him so compelling. Amal loves his mother, lacks confidence around interactions with his female classmates, writes poetry and paints, and attends an art school in a mostly-white wealthy neighborhood, but this is not a clear-cut case of a racist system that views every Black teen as a thug when really the protagonist is an honor roll student and a rule-follower who simply found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rather, Amal is also presented as a teenager who cuts class, flouts his mother's rules and curfew, and has a history of getting into fights. These two sides are not in conflict but are what make the character feel human, and I absolutely loved that complexity, expressed so well through Amal's sensitivity and poetry.

I also loved the titles of the chapters/poems. Each one was short and poignant, immediately drawing me along to the next poem in the story.

My only qualm with the actual text (because the other complaint I mentioned is less to do with the novel and more to do with the framing of it) was the ending. Though I found the last few lines to be significant in their uncertainty, I thought the final scenes moved a bit too quickly and I was surprised when the book seemingly suddenly ended without the resolution I was anticipating. That said, the transition into the reflections by co-author Ibi Zoboi was fascinating and moving enough that I quickly forgot that initial disappointment at the end of the book.

I received an educator's advanced listening copy of this book from Libro.fm. Thank you to HarperCollins Audio and Balzer + Bray as well as authors Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam. Opinions stated in this review are honest and my own.
Release Date: September 1, 2020

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stevielynne's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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