Hope Ablaze

December 15, 2023
A Pakistani American girl's commitment to her family's legacy of resistance poetry is put to the test. Eighteen-year-old Nida Siddiqui keeps quiet about her aspirations as a poet--"to be accepted outside the bubble" of her community. Her political poetry, performed at a local Muslim venue and a national all-Muslim tournament, makes her mother fear for her safety; Nida's uncle has been incarcerated on terrorism charges after going viral with his radical poetry. When Nida prays in a public park before a rally for a Democratic Senate candidate, she's perceived as a potential terrorist by police, treated with scorn by the officers and the politician, and has her hijab yanked off. Unbeknownst to her, someone enters the scathing poem she writes in response in a contest. She wins, the poem makes the news, and the politician threatens to sue her for defamation and slander. Nida spirals into doubts about her poetry, family legacy, and the best way to handle the controversy in relation to her Muslim community. Using a mix of free verse and prose and blending realism with fabulism, Rana explores themes of wrongful incarceration and systemic Islamophobia. Unfortunately, the poetry is often repetitive and lacks emotional resonance, while the magical elements are too literal to be effective. The author attempts to weave Nida's family history into political events, but the portrayal of her growth remains unconvincing. An ambitious premise that falters in its execution. (Fiction. 13-18)

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January 29, 2024
Debut author Rana explores Islamophobia and politics via a magical lens in this genre-bending novel set in post-9/11 America. Eighteen-year-old Pakistani American Nida Siddiqui is the niece of renowned poet Mamou Abdul-Hafeedh, who was incarcerated on trumped-up charges during the “war on terror.” On her way home from visiting him, Nida is violently and illegally frisked at a Democratic Senatorial candidate’s political rally, during which her hijab is forcibly removed by law enforcement. In response, she writes a series of poems and journal entries, one of which goes viral after Nida’s notebook mysteriously disappears. Suddenly, her quiet life is upended: she’s accused of defaming the candidate, and her uncle loses legal representation. When Nida realizes that she’s cursed (“Did Allah do this to me?”) to never write again, she is forced to choose between the safety of silence or the power of her voice. Through a mixture of verse and occasionally didactic prose, Rana effectively portrays the friction between religious freedom and state-sponsored secularism, underpinned by discussion surrounding wrongful incarceration and xenophobia. The result is a thought-provoking and provocative novel about faith, family, and friendship. Ages 13–up.

February 15, 2024
Grades 9-12 This debut novel immerses readers in the life of a Muslim Pakistani American teen poet and the urban immigrant community in which she lives. A high-school senior, Nida lives with her siblings and their amma, who runs a small Punjabi catering operation. Nida is following in her uncle Mamou's footsteps by writing and performing passionate, sometimes controversial poetry in the form of letters, a family legacy. Mamou's words went viral and landed him in federal prison, wrongfully incarcerated on terrorism charges, so when Nida's poetry is used against her by an Islamophobic politician, she fears that sharing the truth is too dangerous. A mysterious curse steals Nida's poetic voice until she regains the courage to stand behind her words. Nida tells her story in both poetry and prose dense with Punjabi language and insight into her experiences of Islamophobia, wearing the hijab, voting, colonialism, the nature of Islam, and America's role in Middle East politics. Unfortunately, the poetry is a disappointment, but this book is an important, necessary step forward in honest, unapologetically Muslim storytelling for a teen audience.

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February 1, 2024

Gr 7 Up-Nida Siddiqui is a Pakistani American Muslim teen navigating between her passion as an activist poet and her mother's fear for her safety. While praying in the park, she is accosted by police and local political candidate Mitchell Wilson, then frisked for being a "threat" simply because she wears a hijab. Her dignity unraveled, Nida pours her rage onto the page via a private poetry letter in her journal to Wilson. Unbeknownst to her, someone sends it to a national poetry contest, which she wins, and the poem goes viral. The problem is, her uncle Mamou has been wrongfully incarcerated for years, accused of terrorism as a result of his protest poetry. Meanwhile, the seamy Wilson threatens a lawsuit, and the media has a heyday correlating Nida with Mamou. While Mamou sees his niece's poetry as an honor, Amma views it as a curse-leaving the teen struggling to find her identity on her own terms. In a hybrid of verse and prose, Rana's debut fervently tackles Islamophobia, racism, systemic oppression, incarceration, and consent. Elements of magical realism are introduced in a banal way that reads more literal than magical. An extended dream sequence provides a clunky backstory that is at odds with the journey of Nida's character. Myths about what Muslim terms such as "jihad" mean are dispelled by the author in a logical fashion that may help open some eyes to how they have been twisted by Western culture. VERDICT A valiant attempt that just misses the mark; a secondary purchase for teen collections.-Lisa Krok

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