“Though you muffle my voice, I speak. 

Though you clip my wings and cage me, I fly. 

And though you batter my body,
commanding me to kneel before you, 

I resist.” 

– Ali Amin (Layla’s dad in the book) 

In the midst of a falling-apart California, 17-year-old Layla Amin is simply trying to continue with her normal life through all the chaos that has broken out throughout the entire country, causing dangerous discrimination against Muslim citizens. Despite how she can’t go to school anymore, has to sneak out just to see her boyfriend, and has to witness her dad’s poetry books get burnt by local mobs, things seem to be going smoothly until things take a devastating turn for her family and many others – they are sent to an internment camp with razor-wired electric fences and guards keeping them in. Layla doesn’t want to accept any of this for her people and is scared for her future, but her fear doesn’t keep her in line with obeying the camp’s director. Matter of fact, her fear is what urges her to find a way to get everyone out despite her parents urging her not to out of fear for her safety. Throughout the book, Layla strategizes and gets to know the place and the people around her, even getting a few other kids her age with the same ambition of freedom to help her plan. Their plans come together, and their way of fighting for the freedom of Muslims in America inspires the people inside of the camp and even outside, where Layla’s boyfriend is also finding ways to help her out. 

Not only does this book give a glimpse of real-world situations, but it inspires young readers to fight and work hard towards their future, especially if those who are abusing the excess power at their hands, like the government, is trying to take their future away. Even Teen Vogue themselves had praise for this book, exclaiming, “This heart-thumping book horrifies and inspires; Layla’s struggle reminds readers to speak up and that only the persistent and resistant can make a change”. 

All I needed to decide on getting the book was reading the back, which is highly unusual for me, especially as someone who doesn’t read as often as I wish to. The first line in the back of the book was “In a horrifying near-future United States”, and all that I can think about is how this was back in 2019, but now we are here in 2025 where I currently fear that we are days away from the “horrifying near-future United States” that I witnessed in this book. This book has reminded me that the fight isn’t over and that we need to come together before one person manages to separate us all, along with inspiring me to get into journalism and activism for the sake of my future and the future of my loved ones and hopefully you, dear readers, can find that same spark inside you to do the same. 

Rebellion is built on hope.