Reviewed by Paige Pagan
Review Source: Teaching for Change
Book Author: Laila Sabreen
SPOILER ALERT
A powerful contemporary young adult novel that’s essential when having conversations about challenging Islamophobia and encouraging teens to funnel their creative energies into advocacy.
The course of three teenage Muslim girls’ lives virtually converge in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Washington D.C. Sabriya’s summer plans included preparation for an audition to join the American Ballet Theatre’s youth intensive. Meanwhile, Zakat planned to spend her time off from school working on her artwork that she dreams of displaying outside of her small town in Georgia one day. Farah is stuck reluctantly traveling from her home in California to visit her father and his family in Boston. Then, when a man assumed to be Muslim bombs a metro station near the Capitol, all three girls are left to deal with both their grief and the rampant rise in Islamophobia. Sabriya pours out her sadness over the event that happened not too far from her home in the suburbs and anger over the misinformation about the terrorist’s background in an online blog titled “You Truly Assumed” (YTA), meant to be private. However, when she accidentally makes the blog public and it goes viral, Sabriya turns it into an opportunity to provide a safe space for Muslim girls across the country to express themselves openly. Zakat joins the YTA team as an artist and Farah joins as the tech person. While the girls process their grief with each other and this online community, they also confront hate crimes in their own backyards and harassment online from an alt-right group.
This book has so many threads and is extremely layered, but accurately portrays the brutal reality of how far hate can go. Sabriya discovers that the leader of the alt-right group is someone she personally knows and who has openly been unapologetic about their racism. Zakat deals with vandalism to her community mosque, Islamic school, and local Muslim-owned bookstore. Farah works with friends to organize a vigil in honor of a Muslim girl who was recently murdered. All of the girls turn to activism not only via “You Truly Assumed,” but also by putting the mission of justice into practice within their own communities.
Another strong element here is highlighting the specific intersectional positionality of being Black Muslim women. All three girls work against society’s tendency to splinter off these integral parts of them.
For other educational resources to help guide conversations with young people about these topics, please refer to Challenge Islamophobia.org.
Paige Pagan is a Social Justice Books program specialist at Teaching for Change.
You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen
Published by Harlequin on February 8, 2022
Genres: Activism, Muslim, Washington DC
Pages: 304
Reading Level: High School
ISBN: 9780369705655
Review Source: Teaching for Change
Publisher's Synopsis: "You Truly Assumed is a beautiful portrayal of the multitude of ways to be Black and Muslim while navigating our contemporary world. A must-read for everyone." — Adiba Jaigirdar, author of The Henna Wars
In this compelling and thought-provoking debut novel, after a terrorist attack rocks the country and anti-Islamic sentiment stirs, three Black Muslim girls create a space where they can shatter assumptions and share truths.
Sabriya has her whole summer planned out in color-coded glory, but those plans go out the window after a terrorist attack near her home. When the terrorist is assumed to be Muslim and Islamophobia grows, Sabriya turns to her online journal for comfort. "You Truly Assumed" was never meant to be anything more than an outlet, but the blog goes viral as fellow Muslim teens around the country flock to it and find solace and a sense of community.
Soon two more teens, Zakat and Farah, join Bri to run "You Truly Assumed" and the three quickly form a strong friendship. But as the blog’s popularity grows, so do the pushback and hateful comments. When one of them is threatened, the search to find out who is behind it all begins, and their friendship is put to the test when all three must decide whether to shut down the blog and lose what they’ve worked for…or take a stand and risk everything to make their voices heard.
“I reached the ending with tears in my eyes — tears cued not by sadness but hope and elation.” —S. K. Ali, New York Times bestselling author of The Proudest Blue and Love from A to Z.
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