Ayaan Mohamud

A stunning debut about finding the strength to speak up against hate and fear, for fans of The Hate U Give and I Am Thunder. Hanan has always been encouraged to be a good girl, a quiet girl, never making trouble. When her classmates treat her as a target for their racist bullying, and her teachers use her as their perfect Muslim poster girl, she keeps smiling and keeps her mouth shut. They don't see past her headscarf, but she knows she is so much more than that. Then a local man is murdered, tensions run high and Muslims become targets for even worse abuse. After a terrifying attack, Hanan decides that it's time to make her voice heard...it's time to shake the world.

You Think You Know Me

I hold their bookbags, trailing slightly behind, wanting them to comfort each other for a little while longer.

Wanting them to be there for each other the way siblings should be.

"No one lives in the present without remembering the past. No one. And anyone who pretends they can is really just fooling themselves."

I look at her face now, and really look, for the first time since I've woken up. I look at its youthful glow that's been diminished with every mountain she needed to climb, with every bill that needed to be paid and every mouth that needed to be fed. The weight of the world squarely on her shoulders. My beautiful, strong, resilient mother, graced with an unbearable load.

Why doesn't anyone understand that leaving isn't some amazing, joyous occasion but a betrayal?

I let my head fall into the pillow on my lap, ignoring the pain that shoots through my skull, and I scream. I scream and scream until there's no sound left in my body. I scream until the emptiness inside threatens to overwhelm me and I feel like if I scream any more, I might cease to exist.

Hooyo had said that throwing anger around when you couldn't see was a dangerous thing but what she doesn't get is that all I crave is closing my eyes. I 

 to be blind to my anger. I don't want to see it and control it and hold it back the way I have been for so long. I want to be reckless and free with it, the same way everyone else is.

I don't want to care about anything because caring 

Outside, the sun sets very quickly, the yellow glow of it slowly replaced by greyness, the colour of steel. And the emptiness inside of me grows, leaving me hollow.

I find myself wishing that my voice could be that beautiful so I could carry it with me wherever I go.

You Think You Know Me quotes

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