A review by shethewriter
American Heart by Laura Moriarty

1.0

I am muslim and it is not my responsibility to convince you of my humanity, which is apparently what the author thinks muslims should do to be worthy of freedom. This book makes me want to throw up. She put me in an internment camp so she can explore the tepid moral dilemma of a white kid. An internment. Fucking. Camp. No explanation or exploration, no. We get to just be holocausted, right? That is a believable enough premise for this woman to use speculative fiction. Not sci fi, not aliens, real actual living breathing people that she decided could believably all be put in camps for no other reason than to romanticise another white kid strugging to have empathy. (This is very insulting to white people, too, btfw). Thanks for setting that premise, Laura. It’s not like narratives have CONSEQUENCES FOR SOCIETY or anything. But hey, if you want to use a group of already marginalized people struggling with intercultural confusion as a backdrop for your project, I guess you can get away with that. Doesn’t everyone have that right? Oh wait, no. Just some white folks.