Hollow Fires

Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed

An Iraqi-American student brings a homemade jetpack to school and is then accused of being a terrorist. He is later murdered. A Muslim journalism at the school tries to tell the story. The book is filled with the language of racism, even though the concern seems to be primarily with anti-Muslim discrimination. The muslim and BIPOC students are portrayed as noble people suffering in a society of others that are mostly islamophobic buffoons.

By the second half of thee book, it becomes clear that this is a modern day telling of the Leopold and Loeb story. Alas, the modernization does not quite cut it. The south side of Chicago is not the uber-wealthy area it was back then. Trying to reproduce the same Jackson Park setting does not work as well.  Leopold and Loeb were both from wealthy Jewish families and had completed college while teenagers. They murdered Bobby Franks, a boy from another wealthy Jewish family that they knew. The case was especially concerning because it involved the educated, well-to-do intellectually descending into depravity and taking one of their own. This modern retelling misses that and becomes just a case of rich bullies being suckered into bad behavior by bad internet forums. 

It is a shame the author tries so hard to mix the Islamophobic and the Leopold and Loeb stories. The story is engaging and would succeed well if it didn't try to blur the two.