Samira Ahmed (1)

Layla was a regular American teenager until the new Islamophobic president enacted Exclusion Laws.

Muslims are being rounded up, their books burned, and their bodies encoded with identification numbers. Neighbors are divided, and the government is going after resisters. Layla and her family are interned in the California desert along with thousands of other Muslim Americans, but she refuses to accept the circumstances of her detention, plotting to take down the system. She quickly learns that show more resistance is no joke: Two hijabi girls are beaten and dragged away screaming after standing up to the camp director. There are rumors of people being sent to black-op sites. Some guards seem sympathetic, but can they be trusted? Taking on Islamophobia and racism in a Trump-like America, Ahmed’s (Love, Hate & Other Filters, 2018) magnetic, gripping narrative, written in a deeply humane and authentic tone, is attentive to the richness and complexity of the social ills at the heart of the book. Layla grows in consciousness as she begins to understand her struggle not as an individual accident of fate, but as part of an experience of oppression she shares with millions. This work asks the question many are too afraid to confront: What will happen if xenophobia and racism are allowed to fester and grow unabated?

A reminder that even in a world filled with divisions and right-wing ideology, young people will rise up and demand equality for all. (Realistic fiction. 13-18)

-Kirkus Review show less

Fieldnotes:
Batavia, Illinois, Contemporary (p. 2018)

1 Muslim Indian American Teen
1 Film-making Dream that Meets with Parental Disapproval
Many Classic Movie References That I would Like to Explore

2 Overprotective Parents
1 Very Cool Aunt

1 Love Triangle that Lasts Maybe Half a Minute, Featuring:
* 1 Football Playing High School Royal with Dimples and Secret Depth
* 1 Handsome, Witty, Charming, Understanding College Boy with the Death Knell of Being Deemed "Suitable"

Tone Whiplash When the Cute show more RomCom Suddenly Involves:
* A Terrorist Attack on a Federal Building
* Islamophobia
* Actual Assault

The Short Version
When I picked this up, I was thoroughly charmed by Maya - her fascination for old movies, framing her life as scenes from movies and even hiding behind the camera to avoid the starring role. The tone felt similar to Netflix's Never Have I Ever (which I thoroughly enjoy). I wasn't enthusiastic about the love triangle (Forbidden Fruit v. Suitable Boy), but I'm rarely a fan of those anyway.

Despite the hints from small passages from the terrorist's point of view, I was taken aback (as was Maya) by the sudden and personal impact of Islamophobia. A lot of the aggressive and ignorant comments sounded incredibly familiar - though the teachers at my school certainly did even less to help address it. The incident really upends both Maya's life and the narrative - quite an effective device, but the tone doesn't stay changed. The climactic moments are drastic, but the epilogue is quite cute and hopeful with very little exploration of the emotional impact of the big decision.

I felt the ending lets the book down as the stakes suddenly climb to astronomical but the ending feels Hallmark-y. A shame because I was really quite invested in Maya and loved her POV. show less

https://iwriteinbooks.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/love-hate-and-other-filters-samir...

I wish I had had this book when I was a freshman in college.

I was about two weeks into my first year away from home, standing on campus in New York, when my best friend and I saw the towers come down.

At the time, I had never experienced anything like that but my Indian-Muslim friend stood next to me and said, “Please don’t let them be Muslim”.

Over the next few days, as she wept and worried with millions show more of other New Yorkers, fretting about how many of her friends and neighbors might have gone down in the crash, she had to deal with a level of anxiety the rest of us didn’t.

The American climate shifted immediately toward anti-Islam threats and when we went to the student chapel, that night, to pray, she was harassed for speaking in Arabic.

That moment has been stuck in my heart for 17 years, even as this friend used her resilience and intelligence to go on to become an attorney for the UN, never letting the negative voices stop her.

Because of that introduction of how horrible people can be in a time where we should be helping one another, Love, Hate, and Other Filters struck a deep chord with me.

In a somewhat similar (but altogether different) story, Ahmed’s protagonist., Maya, deals with the fallout of a terrorist bombing and the xenophobic aftermath from her classmates and neighbors.

It is a true testament to the work we still have to do as a country to refrain from judgment in moments we find ourselves acting in fear as opposed to understanding.

Ahmed’s voice is spot on for both the frustration as a Muslim teen among WASP peers and as an American teen in a traditional Indian household. The intertwined identities, code-switching, and balancing of her parents’ American Dream and her own personal search for truth and meaning are woven expertly into the larger themes at play.

I absolutely loved this story and I think it is an intensely important one, right now. show less

I always enjoy books that shift back and forth through time, and this was no exception. I felt like the main character's feminism beat the reader over the head a little (and I say this as a flaming feminist), but I think that is actually necessary given that this is a young adult novel and so it needs to be less subtle than in an adult book. I appreciated the insight into being a young Muslim woman in Paris, and enjoyed that the narrator's POV was very clearly that of a teenager, not one of show more these young people who sounds like they're actually 30. show less