Sabaa Tahir is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Ember in the Ashes series, which has been translated into over thirty-five languages. She grew up in California's Mojave Desert at her family's eighteen-room motel. There, she spent her time devouring fantasy novels, raiding her brother's comic book stash, and playing guitar badly. She began writing books while working nights as a newspaper editor. She likes thunderous indie rock, garish socks, and all things nerd. Visit Sabaa online at SabaaTahir.com and follow her on Instagram @SabaaTahir. You can find more of my reviews of Sabaa's works here.
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 Clouds' 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 father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful father'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.
*This novel is preceded by trigger warnings for drug and alcohol addiction, physical abuse, Islamophobia, mentions of repressed sexual assault, tense exchange with law enforcement, death. Please read the novel and the ensuing review with care.*
There is just so many good things to say about this book, it's hard to determine a starting place. The language is gorgeous in its simplicity and raw detail. If you can read something fictional and it makes you think about something real in your life, that means the language is more powerful than it may originally appear—and that is very much true of All My Rage. Tahir utilizes perspective shifts between three different characters to spin the stories of Salahudin, Noor, and Misbah, dancing between different time periods and life events to keep secrets and reveal them accordingly. Tahir also has a gorgeous way with metaphor, especially the metaphors relating to trauma. Her metaphors are able to capture the pain of trauma, the reality of it, while also capturing the sort of unreality that also comes with pain (the "is this really happening to me" unreality). Tahir's writing is absolutely spectacular in its ability to be raw and truthful and hard-hitting almost without you realizing it.
I am an English student at heart, so tracking the theme of loss through the use of epigraphs and other quotes was one of the most fascinating and compelling parts of the story. Watching Noor's understanding of the Bishop poem evolve as she completed her senior year of high school was real to me, and was important for this book. Words have power, that's something we've known since we were kids, but the meaning of words also changes as we change, and that's not something often commented on. Tahir uses that to her advantage, providing Noor with a very powerful arc of discovering power and agency in her own story. Even Salahudin has this moment in the book where all his major life events coalesce over this moment when he hears a Bible verse repeated back to him. It was actually this moment in the book where I started to cry, because seeing young adults interact with language and quotes in their hardest times was something that really resonated with me.
I saw on Sabaa's Instagram that someone said this book is defined by "allowing young people to be witnessed" and I believe that is absolutely the case, especially with Noor and Salahudin. These two kids go through a lot of messed up stuff—which I refuse to spoil, so just trust me on this—and are just honestly trying to do their best to get by and to make their parents proud of them. There is a lot to comment on about the choices they make: forgiveness, the power of a parent's pride/absence, the "American Dream," and so much more. Certainly there are so many angles through which you can read this book, that you can read it a thousand times and still make new discoveries, still find new things to comment on. The power of this book will be its ability to allow young people to be witnessed across time. It's a never-ending type story, a timeless one, especially if the world remains as brutal as it is.
A lot of folks are saying that this book needs to be taught—I'm not entirely sure I agree with that, because I remember how "learning" a book for school sort of ruined the experience of the book for me. But I definitely agree in that all young adults across the world need to be reading this book as soon as possible. So, keep this book at the top of the NYT bestsellers list; make it your top recommended book of the year; share the joy and hardship of this book with your friends and the young adults you talk to. Share it widely, and share it promptly. People who might not think they would be seen in this book will feel seen and heard. Sabaa Tahir has the power of bringing to light all that we didn't know could be addressed in fiction, all the way down to nuances in language that bring us right to the word rage. Indeed this book is soul-shattering and heart-breaking and all those other words you see—but it is also empowering and healing. And that is why as many people as possible need to get their hands on it to discover the power of Sabaa Tahir's words and storytelling for themselves.
I hope Sabaa Tahir keeps writing the difficult and necessary stories, whether they appear as fantasy or contemporary young adult. Visit Sabaa online at SabaaTahir.com and follow her on Instagram @SabaaTahir. You can find more of my reviews of Sabaa's works here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
Comments
Post a Comment