The Book:
Title: All My Rage
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Published March 1st 2022 by Razorbill
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Pages: 384
“Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.
Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.
Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah’s health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle’s liquor store while hiding the fact that she’s applying to college so she can escape him—and Juniper—forever.
When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.
From one of today’s most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness—one that’s both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.” –Goodreads
My Review:
I am loving the books that are showing incarceration as sometimes just a mistake. I like seeing “criminals” through a more positive lens. With books like Reminders of Him and Heart Bones, All My Rage joins these books showing sympathetic characters who made a bad decision and got arrested. It is positive for incarcerated people. It helps spread that perspective around.
Meeting these characters was an emotional ride. Noor had this mystique while being introduced as someone scorned by her best friend and her circumstances. Sal gave us little bits of his soul as we followed his journey after his mother’s death.
Each of these characters was flawed in the best way. Seeing these characters grow and change was awesome.
The story was mostly character-driven so there wasn’t a lot of plot points to cover. Usually, I see character-driven stories as kind of dull and boring, but maybe I haven’t been reading the right ones. This one was so good.
Tahir wove this intricate story about three people. I love the multiple POVs, especially one POV from Misbah who is not in the present timeline. Her story blended well with the story about her son and Noor.
I got love, loss, grief, pain, and most of all hope. It was amazing! It definitely was not Top Ten books other, but I still loved it.
As always, thanks for reading,
A Bookie
Star Rating: 4
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Great review! Sounds like a book to try!