"Trust is a greedy thing, like gifts. You expect it but you never give it. I stopped trusting my pen and tongue. But the pen also stopped trusting me."

First read of September completed!

Hope Ablaze is a book that tackles a lot of heavy, important topics whilst also balancing them with celebrations of love, family, food, and the fmc's Muslim identity. The moments of community and pure joy were so lovely to read about. I also really appreciated the way this book called out liberals and progressives that still operate as if they need to "save" anyone wearing a hijab.

There were some aspects of this book that were a bit messy, particularly in terms of pacing and characterization. Sometimes there were big moments that were reduced and small moments that dragged on. The characters would have really heavy moments and their next scene together made it feel forgotten.

I'm not someone that's ever gotten into poetry but some of it... didn't translate well, at least to the audiobook version. It came across very juvenile, which I suppose makes sense with this being a YA book; but with the main character's talent for it, I was hoping for a bit more.

Overall, I would recommend this. As I said, I had a few issues with it and I felt the ending was a bit out of place, but I still think this book is important and manages to (successfully) touch on quite a few topics that the YA age range would benefit from reading.