Book Review: Hidden by Miriam Halahmy

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Hidden
Author: Miriam Halahmy
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Released: September 15 2016
Review Source: Holiday House

Fourteen year old Alix lives at the bottom of Hayling Island near the beach. It is a quiet backwater, far removed from world events such as war, terror and refugees. Alix has never even given a thought to asylum seekers, she has enough problems of her own: Dad has a new life that doesn't include her, Grandpa is dead and Mum is helpless and needy. Then one day on the beach Alix and Samir pull a drowning man out of the incoming tide: Mohammed, an illegal immigrant and a student. Mohammed has been tortured by rebels in Iraq for helping the allied forces and has spent all his money to escape. Alone, helpless, and desperate not to be deported, Mohammed's destiny lies in Alix's hands. However, hiding an injured immigrant is fraught with difficulties. Faced with the biggest moral dilemma of her life, what will Alix do, and who can she trust?

Alix thought that she understood life, and that of an immigrants. But when her class starts going over the different types of immigrants and she becomes friends with Samir, someone who opens her eyes to what immigrants deal with. When they find an illegal immigrant in the ocean they have really only one choice, in Samir's eyes; hide the man.

This book is a good story that sheds light on topics that most people either don't want to think about, or just flat out don't think about. It delves a little deeper on a tough topic, that some people just don't have a clue about.

Alix is a strong character who has thought she had known everything about the world until her world gets shaken. And even when her world gets shaken she stands on her own two feet and keeps her ground. Most people in her position would have most likely lost their cool. And reading a character with that much strength inspires others to be that strong.