All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

Amy    
Lynnie  

young adult, contemporary fiction

Sal and Noor are high school seniors who have known each other their whole lives, their families being among the very small Pakistani population in their small town in California. Both are facing pretty serious difficulties—dealing with more than the average high school senior. The two had become distant but, when Sal’s mother dies of kidney disease, they find comfort from each other and begin to rebuild their friendship, perhaps becoming even closer than ever. But then things fall apart in spectacular fashion. All My Rage alternates between both of their points of view in addition to Sal’s mom’s point of view from her earlier days in Pakistan and the United States.

Amy's Review

Unlike Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes series, All My Rage was not a fantasy. The realities in Sal’s and Noor’s lives were very believable and my heart went out to them. Of course, there is some normal teenage drama and stupidity but the two of them each had significant personal troubles to deal with. I was rooting for them throughout and had to know how things would turn out for them, especially after everything really got out of control in the middle of the novel. In fact, this novel even brought out all of my rage at times.  It was very well written and I can understand why it won the 2022 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and the Michael L. Printz Award.  Well deserved!

Interestingly, as I read this novel, I recognized similarities to Tahir’s own childhood which she had shared during an author visit I attended right before her third Ember novel was released.  Sal’s family runs a motel in a small California town and, I believe, that is exactly the situation in which Tahir grew up. Also, Sal is a writer as is she. I wonder if there was more autobiography in this novel.

There were three narrators, one for each of the three points of view. The best one was Kausar Mohammad voicing Noor’s sections. She was a superb voice actor and had a nice variety of voices. The other two were Deepti Gupta voicing Misbah and Kamran R. Khan voicing Sal. It was difficult to follow dialogues in Sal’s sections and I really wished Khan tried a bit harder to differentiate character voices. But, overall, they were a good ensemble and really brought the characters to life. I’ll give them an A-.

Lynnie's Review

 

Rage. Rage is not the only emotion in this amazing novel by Sabaa Tahir, but rage courses through every page, infusing itself into every other emotion as it plays out. Rage at the racism that Noor and Salahudin experience in their small California town, whether overt or the kind of everyday microaggression experienced by brown people in mostly white communities. Rage at the hardships that immigrants face as they try to fight their way toward fulfilling their own American dream. Rage at the power of addiction to blow apart lives and families and how powerless it can make loved ones feel. Rage at how difficult it can be to escape an abusive home, how hard it is to get help. Rage at the loss of loved ones gone too soon. So. Much. Rage.

And yet, that rage is also paired with love and friendship and family. All My Rage was a gripping story from beginning to end and I found myself compelled to finish it and find out what would happen to Noor and Salahudin. Would they be able to channel their rage and succeed? Or would it tear them apart chapter by chapter? Sometimes, I was not sure, but I found myself rooting for them every step of the way.

I both read the book and listened to the audiobook depending on what I was doing at the time, and I found that the media changed my perspective on some characters. I found that I had much more sympathy for Ashlee, a friend of Salahudin's for example, when voiced by Kausar Mohammad during Noor's chapters, than when I read about her character. Conversely, I had less sympathy for Salahudin when listening- the clipped way in which Kamran R. Khan voiced most of his chapters made him sound emotionless at times and it made it difficult for me to empathize with him, unlike when I read his voice myself. I found Noor and Misbah to be delightful in any form. Deepti Gupta gave Misbah a voice that was absolutely enchanting- whenever her chapters ended I was sad to hear her leave for a while.

Music is a big part of the story- and I loved the songs Noor choose to express her emotions throughout the book. I have no doubt there are a bunch of playlists from this book out there on Spotify or other platforms- great music is always inspirational.

This is definitely one of the best books I've read this year and will leave me thinking about the characters long after I've put it down.