No True Believers by Rabiah York Lumbard (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- No True Believers by Rabiah York Lumbard
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-525-64425-5 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-525-64426-2 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9-12
After her best friend moves away in senior year, Salma is left to face the anti-Muslim bullying in her school alone, but it escalates to something more sinister when she is pulled from class one day and questioned by two policemen who exude suspicion about Salma’s Islamic faith and her boyfriend Amir’s connections to the United Arab Emirates. Salma’s sleuthing then reveals that her new neighbors are part of a white supremacist militia and their son has been collecting evidence from Salma’s and Amir’s online activities to frame them for a bombing. After Amir goes missing, Salma must piece together the details of the bombing and try to stop it in time. The slow build in the first half of the book is buoyed by Salma’s sharp, droll first-person narration; readers are introduced to Salma’s loving but demanding Moroccan-American family, her challenges living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and her handsome, sweet, oud-playing boyfriend. While the ending may wrap up too neatly for some, a thriller with a Muslim American teen girl as the hero will give readers a unique character to root for and a reminder that anyone can be patriotic.
