Vicki’s Comments (group member since Apr 03, 2022)

Vicki’s comments from the S22 DC Composition group.

Ahmed, Samira. Internment. New York: 2019.

In Internment, Samira Ahmed has created a dystopian novel with an important message: if we do not pay attention to the unjust lessons of the concentration and internment camps of WWII, we may be doomed to repeat our painful past. Internment delivers as far as the message, although the method of delivery is, at times, too heavy-handed. Ahmed’s narrator, Layla, a 17-year-old Muslim American teenager, angrily tells us what is happening to her and her family–they and other Muslims have been forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned in a desert camp as a result of a wave of anti-Muslim feeling and a game-changing presidential election that led to anti-Muslim legislation. Layla has every right to be angry, but readers would feel much more sympathy for her if Ahmed had let her characters and the events of the novel show how unjustly she is treated instead of telling us at every turn, through Layla’s sarcastic voice, how unfair it all is. Layla, like many teenagers, is sullen and brash, but these qualities are not balanced out by more charismatic qualities that would explain why her peers–other teenagers in the camp–and Jake–one of the camp guards–are drawn to her, seemingly viewing her as a savior. These characters, themselves, are not developed enough for readers to care about them…even when some of them lose their lives in the fight for freedom. Internment reads like a quality early draft that could benefit from more character development. It is a book worth reading for its message, though the powerful Author’s Note at the end moved me more than the story itself.
Vicki Billimack, April, 2022