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elmtreebooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Moderate: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Addiction, Death, Racism, Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, and Islamophobia
ska1224's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Addiction, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Violence, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Racism, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Death, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Drug use
kelly_e's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 5.00
Pub Date: March 1, 2022
T H R E E • W O R D S
Powerful • Moving • Honest
📖 S Y N O P S I S
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.
💭 T H O U G H T S
I am very particular in selecting what young adult novels I choose to pick up, and will say it is not a genre I read often. One thing I can say for sure is that when I do I want something hard hitting and realistic with emotional depth. All My Rage 100% delivered on that. Since finishing, I cannot stop thinking about it.
Sabaa Tahir's writing is simply stunning! The narrative is highly readable, yet there is definitely no sugarcoating, and she handles many difficult topics with care and expertise. In fact, it reads almost like non-fiction because everything seemed so real. While there is so much pain, there is also so much hope. It's a genuine portrayal of the cost of the American dream, as well as, what people of colour continue to encounter on a daily basis.
Beyond the writing and tough stuff, there is a beautiful friendship and love story. Sal and Noor's is an authentic love story. Their development and character arcs were equally engaging. As a reader, I was right there alongside them. The theme of forgiveness is also very present - sometimes hard things are hard to forgive, and yet they must be in order to move forward. The audio narration is packed with another layer of emotion and really brought the whole thing to life.
All My Rage made me feel. It made me think. And it certainly made it's way into my heart and easily onto my 2023 favourites list. It's everything I am looking for in the young adult genre and one I would highly recommend to others. Sabaa Tahir has certainly emerged as a writer to watch.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• fans of Angie Thomas
• readers who like to feel all the feelings
• educators
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"Wondering how someone who filled up a room could fit into a box so small."
"Rage can fuel you. But grief gnaws at you slow, a termite nibbling at your soul until you're a whisper of what you used to be."
"The more you ask for,” she’d say, “the better. Because it means you’ve put your faith in something greater than yourself."
Graphic: Addiction, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racism, Islamophobia, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Mental illness, Bullying, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Police brutality, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence
Minor: Sexual assault, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, and Chronic illness
siebensommer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
I think of the way denial can weave its way through a family, whisper gentle lies, and make itself at home.
Graphic: Drug use, Physical abuse, Medical content, Alcohol, Addiction, Death of parent, Alcoholism, Violence, Domestic abuse, Racial slurs, Islamophobia, Drug abuse, and Death
shania_siobhan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Islamophobia, Physical abuse, Death of parent, and Death
lawbooks600's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Score: Five points out of ten.
Man, this book wasn't great and to say it was sad wouldn't be the right words to describe this one. I added it to my list a few days ago at the time of writing this review and a few days later I picked it up from one of the two libraries I visited and finally read it. When I finished it, I thought the novel was too depressing (don't get me wrong, a book can be depressing and still be enjoyable but it needs a balance of depression and more positive emotions, but this one didn't have that.) Did I mention this novel circled my recommendations once? It starts with one story's main character Misbah Malik living in Pakistan who is arranged to marry her predetermined partner when it cuts to the present day in Juniper, California with the other story's protagonists Noor (I initially pronounced it as Nore until she said it rhymes with lure so I switched to that) and Salahudin.
Another book similar to this I've read and enjoyed is Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed but I found that better than this one. I appreciate the author for writing this novel engagingly because of the outstanding descriptions of everything. Here is where the flaws surface; like other books I've read I could never fully connect to all the people who drive the story forward like Misbah, Noor or Salahudin and the plotline(s) were all over the place (I'll explain that later) making them disjointed and harder for me to read or enthral myself in. Now Noor and Salahudin had to get through the death of whom they call Misbah Auntie from kidney problems she refused to address properly (she'd use turmeric instead of going to the doctor) and already I felt miserable but the worst is yet to come. The past narrative told me that Noor's parents died in an earthquake in Pakistan and no one but another person, Chachu (her uncle) saved her with his bare hands which the book repeats sometimes to presumably drive it into my head. I don't understand why I had to look at Misbah's perspective in the past after she died in the present because it didn't add anything significant and distracted from the present perspective story. There are myriad issues the novel talks about much to its detriment as I felt it couldn't pick a single issue to focus on (like alcohol abuse, racism, child abuse and drug abuse) and instead it tried to concentrate on all of them but failed. Maybe if it picked one it could be better.
Everything takes a turn for the worst when Noor applied for seven different universities but to no avail and she tries to pay off the bills without Misbah (whose life went on a downward spiral) to similar results while also dealing with racist attacks at her school and the rage as she calls it bottling inside her (shutting down feelings never works well especially when she physically punches Jamie, the culprit, in return.) Chachu uses a (destructive) coping strategy, alcohol to deal with all the struggles in his life which didn't go to plan as he abuses Noor so she runs away. At least Jamie got karma in the end, Noor got accepted to a university, both people in the present move on ending the book swiftly. I won't reread this but I might read An Ember in the Ashes and its succeeding instalments.
Graphic: Racial slurs, Death, Grief, Racism, Confinement, Blood, Medical content, Drug use, Bullying, Child abuse, Drug abuse, and Injury/Injury detail
Full trigger warnings: Death of an aunt from an illness, parents from an earthquake and other people from electrocution in the past, racism, racist slurs, blood, grief and loss depiction, physical assault, injury and child abuse, abusive and alcohol abusing uncle, imprisonment of a child, hospitalisation, bullying, near-death experience from a drug overdosefazington's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Moderate: Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Racism, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Medical content, Alcohol, Religious bigotry, Cursing, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, and Violence
honeybeewitched87's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Death and Death of parent
Moderate: Sexism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Bullying, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Sexual assault, Medical content, Addiction, Alcoholism, Hate crime, Islamophobia, Medical trauma, Alcohol, and Misogyny
Minor: Violence, Cursing, and Deportation
tigger89's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I think my favorite part was getting to know our two lead characters, watching them struggle and make completely believable mistakes in the face of adversity. As much as I want to armchair quarterback their bad decisions, I don't know that I would've done any better at seventeen. All three points of view — Sal, Noor, and Misbah — were equally compelling for me to read, and I appreciated the in-universe explanation at the end for why we were being given the historical chapters alongside the present day.
As for what I wasn't so much a fan of, the modern day romance put me off almost immediately. I wasn't prepared for it from the blurb on the cover, and "best friends to lovers" is a trope I loathe, especially when the romance falls apart and you just ruined a perfectly lovely platonic relationship for nothing. This is very much a me problem, but it's worth mentioning since I can't be the only one.
I was also rubbed the wrong way by how the plot where Sal seeks alternate income to avoid closing the motel was written. I was fine with his initial decision(see: realistic bad decisions), but everything from after that up until the scene in the car with Noor felt like a bad after-school special. It was a little bit too carefully-concocted to demonstrate the consequences of Sal's actions, and didn't ring as true as the rest of the book did. After the scene in the car it felt okay again, but for a while there I was rolling my eyes pretty hard.
I think in the end I'm going to have to go with four stars, because the parts that I liked were incredible. It was just a few glaring things dragging it down for me. I would certainly pick up another book by this author, especially if it didn't have a romance in it.
Graphic: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Grief, Islamophobia, Physical abuse, Medical content, and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Drug use, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Terminal illness
marissasa's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Xenophobia, Racism, and Violence