All My Rage

All My Rage

Sabaa Tahir

Razorbill/Penguin, 2022

374 pages

Grades 9-Up

Realistic Fiction

Alternating chapters and points of view convey the stories of Salahudin and Noor, former best friends growing up poor in a California desert town as the only Muslim teenagers. A third voice is offered in italics and is a person from the past in Pakistan, who eventually is revealed and is significant to the present day characters. An aspiring writer, Sal lives in a failing motel. His mother is dying of a kidney disease and his father is an advanced alcoholic. After his mother dies and the small family is in danger of losing the motel, Sal makes poor choices to earn money that bring repercussions for them all. Meanwhile, Noor would love to go to college, but her abusive uncle forbids it, forcing her, instead, to work many hours in his liquor store. She finds escape in music and in her friendship with Sal and his mother. Feelings of friendship between the young people grow and Sal panics-leading him to push Noor away and cause a riff in their relationship. They finally find their way back together-only to have disaster strike and their worlds turned upside down yet again. Can Sal fix the situation to offer a life raft to his friend and can Noor ever find her way back to Sal?

This is a very different book from the author's Ember in the Ashes series. It is contemporary, honest, raw, and heartbreaking. I had to stop reading it a few times to catch my breath and then found myself worrying about the characters, forcing myself go back to it. Tahir explores themes such as immigration, islamophobia, addiction, abuse, and the cycle of poverty. At times the situations of the young people seem hopeless, yet through the guidance of a few trusted adults, perseverance, and luck there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The author adds some websites for help for some of the various troubles explored for readers who may see themselves within these pages. The two narrators voices are very distinct and offer complimenting, yet different, sides to the story. We see the truth in some situations before the other teenager does and in some cases before the actual narrator does. I love the thread of the narration from the past that fits in with the overall plot, offering another layer to the rich tale. This is a book with no easy answers and though the main characters survive and find some semblance of peace, there is no perfect happy-ever-after. I know that this book is loosely based on the author's youth and I only hope that she did not have to endure the full extent of pain and heartbreak experienced by these characters.