At first glimpse, the basis of the struggle encompassing 16 year-old Ramzi Hassan's life may not be new or unheard of. The United States has seen discrimination of all kinds long before the days of Martin Luther King Jr. What we may not see though at first glimpse, is that discrimination takes on many previously unrecognizable forms of identity. Regardless the foundation of life starts with one simple thing. Everyone yearns to be accepted, to fit in, to be like everyone else.

At least that's the way people Ramzi's age view life. In the novel, Ramzi grew up in a strict religious house hold. The fact that his religion happened to be Islam, made his boundaries given to him by his parents even more rigid. His parent's expected him to be the male role model figure and leader in the house hold, next to his father of course. Responsibilities of staying clean, out of trouble, not being able to have a girlfriend, not being able to party with your high school buddies, would not be Ramzi's first choice, yet it's his duties as an Arab-American Muslim.

Those three words alone make it difficult to find friends in school to begin with. What's worse is when you spent your entire life building a small nitch of friends only to be forced to move to another town and start all over. That's exactly what happens to Ramzi when his Father, who happens to work at an airplane engineering firm, get's promoted to a higher paying job based in Fort Worth Texas. Now Ramzi is not only faced with leaving his friends, and cousins, but St. Louis Missouri, a town in which his whole existence is deeply rooted in.

Accepting his parent's decisions although was not easy, was a must. Yet just as he begins to settle down, fate has it that the largest U.S. Tragedy known to man occurred...September 11th, 2001. Now just because his father is a lead aerodynamic engineer for John Jay Anderson, he is accused for funding, supporting and being involved with the attacks of 9/11.

Now Ramzi must push everything else in his life to the side, and take on the role that his father had to suddenly relinquish. Not only must he fight to keep his family together, but race against time to prove his father's innocence. Armed with only the fundamental human knowledge that his father instilled in him, Ramzi must struggle to Keep The Faith Alive. "Do as god wishes, keep the faith alive, and everything will fall in place." is the exact code that he must now live by.

In this coming of age story, witness the mental strength of young boy on his way to becoming a man all the while learning that Sometimes the Hardest Thing You Can Do in Life is to Keep the Faith Alive.