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Internment
by Samira Ahmed
We kick this book off with Layla, our main character, who is a Muslim, sneaking around after the curfew that has been imposed upon Muslims in this dystopian future. The reason why she's putting herself in danger like this is so that she can go meet her white-passing Jewish boyfriend (who has no such curfew) near his house so they can kiss.
This pretty much sets the tone for the book. Layla, time and time again throughout the book shows that she's incredibly immature, selfish and single-minded, especially so when it comes to David, her boyfriend.
There is no given reason as to why she takes this risk. If this boyfriend actually loved her why would they be meeting past curfew when it's so dangerous for her, instead of during the daytime? Why so far away from her house and close to his instead?
I don't understand how I'm meant to like or relate to this protagonist when she's awful and genuinely dumb. She is constantly unironically comparing her situation to the Japanese Americans in WWII. I've done literally no research on this but I sincerely doubt the Japanese Americans got given their own small living spaces with some measure of privacy (the bedrooms aren't bugged in Layla's family's trailer) for each individual family unit. I'm sure it's more likely that they were all crammed into communal shacks.
I also cannot stand idiots who don't know when it's best to keep quiet and when it's actually appropriate or useful to resist. Layla puts her super snippy attitude on with the woman checking them in to their caravan and giving them keys. How is that useful? You're just making your parents anxious. She's immediately melodramatic upon checking out their caravan, and I quote '...if I continue standing here, I'll slowly fade away until I cease to exist.'
It's the rich elitism that the tone of her whining takes that really irks me. She mentions that her bedroom in this trailer is 'the size of my old bathroom'. Imagine the Japanese or the Jewish people during the Holocaust, with no bedroom, small or no. Certainly with no privacy. Also, to a lesser degree, imagine poor people, forced to live like this all the time due to poverty being notoriously difficult to escape from. She then goes on to say the sheet in her room '... doesn't exactly scream high thread count.' And upon asking where the bathroom is, her mother '...opens two small doors that I thought were cabinets. One is a shower; the other, a toilet.' I just can't imagine the privilege and the stupidity. Assuming a full length door in a trailer is a cabinet door. A full length cabinet. Like a pantry? In a caravan? What?
Every opportunity she could use to comfort or reassure her mother or father she squanders and instead chooses to purposefully wind them up by all but accusing them of being the reason she personally is stuck in this situation. Or she causes them more worry by talking about revolution and resistance in front of the cameras and recording devices that Layla knows full well are in their living room.
Layla immediately breaks curfew on her first night in the camp. For no reason. She is so, so stupid. Repeatedly and unapologetically. She does nothing but dangerous stuff all the time and then rues that she doesn't want to get anyone that helps her into trouble.
Okay, so, imagine that there's a bad guy who is the baddest bad guy to ever exist. That is the director of the camp. Of course the super uber bad guy director hates "these shiftless millennials and hippie protestors". Why would they hire this psychopath to be the director of the first ever Muslim detainment camp? If this is how quick he flies into red mist rage then that would've shown through in his temperament long before he was assigned this incredibly important role (being in charge of the first ever Muslim internment camp) in the president's plan. Christ.
A lot of this book is nothingness. Layla pining after her boyfriend. Ayesha and Soheil flirting. The teenagers playing at revolution through planning a fast or writing articles. Layla philosophising in an incredibly dull, shallow way about how being locked up is bad and feels bad. Dull dull dull. I struggled to convince myself to pick the book up - I found myself re-reading emails at work on my lunch break instead of turning my Kindle on to get back to this drudgery.
We are just incapable of subtlety in this book. The bad guy is the baddest. Layla is constantly lamenting on how being a prisoner sucks. Everyone clenches their fists when they're angry - Layla and the director both. This book seems to have confused who its audience is. Let's face it - the audience is likely to be people who already know that facism and racism are bad. Why do we need to receive endless rants about exactly those subjects? Are we toddlers who constantly need reminding that bad people are bad? Unless you've never read a dystopia before or a WWII book then you've already read these points made by much better authors who do a much better job at nuance.
It's an utterly squandered premise for a book - a Muslim detainment camp is not exactly an unimaginable concept in this climate - but it seems dishonest, disingenuous to co-opt this Jewish tragedy or this Japanese Americans strife in the face of the immigration camps they currently have set up for the Mexican people who have crossed the border. Even in doing so, it wouldn't be so galling if the author had used the premise to make good points about being a prisoner of war, or to give a fresh perspective as to how this experience would differ for the Muslim community, but they have failed on every count.
The book constantly referenced Trump's America - it talks about white people wanting to make America great again, and there was something about the president's Twitter rants, but then we never mention Trump by name and I'm completely unsure why. Are we trying to make this all-encompassing? Like those other references don't already place the book solidly between 2017 and 2020 (unless the Americans manage to impeach Trump before then).
The soap opera ending and a lack of answers to questions has really polished this one off for me.
I received this ARC through Netgalley.
This pretty much sets the tone for the book. Layla, time and time again throughout the book shows that she's incredibly immature, selfish and single-minded, especially so when it comes to David, her boyfriend.
There is no given reason as to why she takes this risk. If this boyfriend actually loved her why would they be meeting past curfew when it's so dangerous for her, instead of during the daytime? Why so far away from her house and close to his instead?
I don't understand how I'm meant to like or relate to this protagonist when she's awful and genuinely dumb. She is constantly unironically comparing her situation to the Japanese Americans in WWII. I've done literally no research on this but I sincerely doubt the Japanese Americans got given their own small living spaces with some measure of privacy (the bedrooms aren't bugged in Layla's family's trailer) for each individual family unit. I'm sure it's more likely that they were all crammed into communal shacks.
I also cannot stand idiots who don't know when it's best to keep quiet and when it's actually appropriate or useful to resist. Layla puts her super snippy attitude on with the woman checking them in to their caravan and giving them keys. How is that useful? You're just making your parents anxious. She's immediately melodramatic upon checking out their caravan, and I quote '...if I continue standing here, I'll slowly fade away until I cease to exist.'
It's the rich elitism that the tone of her whining takes that really irks me. She mentions that her bedroom in this trailer is 'the size of my old bathroom'. Imagine the Japanese or the Jewish people during the Holocaust, with no bedroom, small or no. Certainly with no privacy. Also, to a lesser degree, imagine poor people, forced to live like this all the time due to poverty being notoriously difficult to escape from. She then goes on to say the sheet in her room '... doesn't exactly scream high thread count.' And upon asking where the bathroom is, her mother '...opens two small doors that I thought were cabinets. One is a shower; the other, a toilet.' I just can't imagine the privilege and the stupidity. Assuming a full length door in a trailer is a cabinet door. A full length cabinet. Like a pantry? In a caravan? What?
Every opportunity she could use to comfort or reassure her mother or father she squanders and instead chooses to purposefully wind them up by all but accusing them of being the reason she personally is stuck in this situation. Or she causes them more worry by talking about revolution and resistance in front of the cameras and recording devices that Layla knows full well are in their living room.
Layla immediately breaks curfew on her first night in the camp. For no reason. She is so, so stupid. Repeatedly and unapologetically. She does nothing but dangerous stuff all the time and then rues that she doesn't want to get anyone that helps her into trouble.
Okay, so, imagine that there's a bad guy who is the baddest bad guy to ever exist. That is the director of the camp. Of course the super uber bad guy director hates "these shiftless millennials and hippie protestors".
Spoiler
Reporters are in the camp and he just straight up punched an underage internee. Fucking imagine being this much of a shitty bad guy.A lot of this book is nothingness. Layla pining after her boyfriend. Ayesha and Soheil flirting. The teenagers playing at revolution through planning a fast or writing articles. Layla philosophising in an incredibly dull, shallow way about how being locked up is bad and feels bad. Dull dull dull. I struggled to convince myself to pick the book up - I found myself re-reading emails at work on my lunch break instead of turning my Kindle on to get back to this drudgery.
We are just incapable of subtlety in this book. The bad guy is the baddest. Layla is constantly lamenting on how being a prisoner sucks. Everyone clenches their fists when they're angry - Layla and the director both. This book seems to have confused who its audience is. Let's face it - the audience is likely to be people who already know that facism and racism are bad. Why do we need to receive endless rants about exactly those subjects? Are we toddlers who constantly need reminding that bad people are bad? Unless you've never read a dystopia before or a WWII book then you've already read these points made by much better authors who do a much better job at nuance.
It's an utterly squandered premise for a book - a Muslim detainment camp is not exactly an unimaginable concept in this climate - but it seems dishonest, disingenuous to co-opt this Jewish tragedy or this Japanese Americans strife in the face of the immigration camps they currently have set up for the Mexican people who have crossed the border. Even in doing so, it wouldn't be so galling if the author had used the premise to make good points about being a prisoner of war, or to give a fresh perspective as to how this experience would differ for the Muslim community, but they have failed on every count.
The book constantly referenced Trump's America - it talks about white people wanting to make America great again, and there was something about the president's Twitter rants, but then we never mention Trump by name and I'm completely unsure why. Are we trying to make this all-encompassing? Like those other references don't already place the book solidly between 2017 and 2020 (unless the Americans manage to impeach Trump before then).
The soap opera ending and a lack of answers to questions has really polished this one off for me.
I received this ARC through Netgalley.