Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed

27 reviews

dramagirl2003's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

4.5

you know you’ve read a lot of books when you can predict the ending less than halfway through. didn’t really spoil it though, i was determined to see if i was right. i can’t believe that i went from thinking

richard was cute to accurately accusing him of murder

in less than 6 pages

thoughts while reading

p8: um what else is he supposed to say? it’s the truth. he’s pretty much just been the victim of a hate crime and now you’re harassing this 14 year old kid

I made a jet pack. And they killed me for it.

p15: oh no, truancy! cause that totally confirms terrorism right 🙄

Alternative fact (presidential edition): The children of Muslim American parents are largely responsible for the growing number of terrorist attacks.
Truth: The director of the FBI testified before Congress that "a majority of the domestic terrorism cases we've investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

p118: wait, her name’s ellen ellis? that’s crazy

Lie: "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening." —Donald J. Trump, July 24, 2018
Truth: "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." —George Orwel, 1984
Fact: Truth is stranger than fiction.

Truth: The older you get, the better you are at hiding.

p162: ack! richard’s kinda cute

p168: what if

richard is the secret white supremacist? he’s usually around when something happens, and it would be so dramatic if the love interest was faking the entire time

Fact: Sticks and stones can break your bones...
Alternative fact: ...but words will never hurt you.
Truth: Words can be terrifying. Sometimes words leave scars. Words can break you, too.

Truth: Reading helps you discover who you are. Reading makes you more empathetic.
Truth: In a war, books can be weapons.

Fact: In the United States, citizens are offered equal protection under the law.
Truth: Some Americans are more equal than others.

p230: i’m almost certain that

richard is the mastermind.

Truth: Sometimes the body remembers what the mind cannot.

p235: hmm the secret spot is probably where jawad was found

Truth: "Go Home" is a xenophobic favorite.
Truth: Racists are really bad at geography.

p247: this is some of the most obliviously racist questioning i’ve ever encountered

p260: i bet

richard is framing nate

p267: well that’s pretty damming dude

p270: oh the keychain used to belong to safiya. interesting

p274: whadup karen mcmanus cameo ✨

p287: aww safiya 🥹🫶🏻

“Are you avoiding me?”

yes. as she should be

p319: OMG IT IS

RICHARD

Content Warnings

xread_write_repeatx's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

xovonniexo's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Content Warnings

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

4.0

Really enjoyed it. This made me tear up a little towards the end a few times.

Content Warnings

stephanielee's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Such a great book. Check the content warnings but I loved how the author pulled on real life events (names, locations, etc were changed) to really pull you in to how this is happening now. Still. Every day for black, brown and Indigenous folx.

Content Warnings

clawclawclaw's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

lawbooks600's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.0

Representation: Asian main characters, side Black characters
Score: Seven points out of ten.

Well. I remember this book circling my recommendations for a while then I added it and not much time afterward I finally picked it up and read it. When I finished it I felt like there was a lot to unpack here and I must say the novel is well executed most of the time but it can sometimes get disjointed with all the multiple POVs though I do understand the need for that. Before the story starts there is a glossary of the terms the novel will use; in fact I never knew alternative facts existed but now I know. Now then. It starts with the main character Safiya Mirza or Safiya for short and off the bat she tells me she essentially goes to a school of woke-washing virtue signallers and also she's a journalist.

Here is the other significant part, there's another character who recycled some materials to make a jetpack for a makerspace program or something along those lines but his English teacher accused him of having a bomb which implies a racial bias according to Safiya. Well when I think about that it makes sense in a way but anyone could've done that, also people talk about races a lot here. He was arrested and suspended but later released and all that only took place within the opening pages, I know that seems like a fast-paced beginning, and it is though I must admit after that this is a much slower paced crime novel than what I'm used to. At least it picks up steam toward the end. Someone hacked Safiya's website and she deduces that based on the name Ghost Skin and those quotes from a fascist manifesto the culprit is a white nationalist/supremacist but I don't know who is that person. Later on the other character gets kidnapped and killed out of racism but here's the thing, the book told me there was a guy called Nate who after going on some extremist websites and channels he became a racist and since the killing is racially motivated he must've done it.

I spend the next 200 pages watching Safiya figure out who is the killer after seeing the body with some flashbacks and flashforwards from the other character interspersed, when I read this part I felt a little tension which built towards the last few pages. There was a plot twist I didn't see coming since there was another character called Richard who also had involvement in the killing (I never expected that considering I've never heard of this person up until that point) and Safiya's testimony that their race (white) and privilege didn't save them but somehow they got the nicest prison was chilling. One of them captained two sports teams and held a record. They had mansions. The revelation shocked everyone and some even denied this claim despite the evidence. Wow. At least she got a little solace when the jig was up. Still, she believes there's more work to do to ensure this never happens again.
P.S. Technically the novel is non-linear? It jumps from time to time sometimes.
P.P.S. It's slightly outdated since it mentions Twitter and not X but I can forgive that since it was set before the change. That cameo was a little amusing.

Content Warnings

weatherd's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

warlocksarecool21's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.0

Hollow Fires was a riveting and profound story about community and justice in the face of an unspeakable tragedy. I thought the format of this story was so interesting since it combined typical narration with articles, phone calls and video transcripts. I also thought the dual pov between Safiya and Jawad was well-done. We got to find out how Jawad’s past intertwined with Safiya’s and allowed readers to gain insight into what happened to Jawad while Safiya investigated. I thought Safiya was a good main character and I enjoyed her determination and sense of justice. I kind of guessed who killed Jawad (an ironic prediction turned out to be true 😭) but I was engaged in finding out how they would be revealed. The resolution of the mystery felt a little quick to me, but I think the overall plot was well-written. This is a powerful story about how fear and hatred can infest a country, and how the strength and resolve of a community can overcome it.

Content Warnings

corriejn's review

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dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

YA novel about a teen in Chicago dealing with racist and Islamophobic incidents in her community. A bit true crime/mystery, a bit of teen romance, peer drama, struggles at school, etc., and lots of contextualizing situations within both real and fictionalized events in the rise of open right wing and xenophobic sentiments in the U.S. and social media. Some points made a bit "on the nose" but didn't feel too out of place for the genre.

Content Warnings

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