This book is perhaps the most timely thing I have read so far this year. The politics of 15-minutes-into-the-future America will read like a punch to your face, but if you haven't been living under a rock, then politics probably already feel that way.

I found Layla to be a likable enough character. She does tend to have a narrow focus throughout the story that leads her to make several unintelligent decisions and she is immediately too trusting of one of her guards, Jake. I do, however, like that she is unwavering in her relationship to David, a Jewish boy, and that she is unwilling to just accept what happens to her.

After about the 50% mark, I found that the story almost became more about the guard Jake and how he was saving Layla than about what Layla was actually doing herself. This bordered on "white savior" for me, and I would have appreciated Jake and his part in the story more if either the ending was different or if he had been a person of color. Jake's character made me feel like this story was almost bigger than the author's ability to tell, especially when it focused so much on him. Perhaps another fifty pages of amazing brown and black hijabi girls kicking ass would have lessened the emphasis on Jake. At least the author was extremely diverse in the representation of nationalities and practices of the Muslim population in Camp Mobius.

Overall, with how pertinent this story is and with the author's note about internment being the past and current reality of America, I absolutely have to recommend this book - especially for the rising generation of teenagers. Fascism isn't something threatening America from the outside. It's already here in plain sight, and it has been for years. But we are here too. Putting books like this on our shelves and in our hands will make it harder for fascism, xenophobia, homophobia, racism, Islamophobia, and all other unique characteristics of our identities to divide us.

The people united will never be defeated.