Name: Leah | @LeahsLittlePleasures's review of All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
Item: All My Rage
Rating: 5
Author: Leah | @LeahsLittlePleasures

Sabaa Tahir

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir comes a brilliant, unforgettable, and heart-wrenching contemporary YA novel about family and forgiveness, love and loss, in a sweeping story that crosses generations and continents. Final cover to be revealed! 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.

All My Rage

Christine Frisbie

Children are the greatest dream of all. A dream manifest- walking, talking, venturing into the wide world. Open to success and joy and greatness. Open to wild, spectacular possibility. But open to destruction, also.

Hans

“She was not of my body or my blood, this child. But she was of my soul.”

“This life is jihad—struggle," Shafiq says. "Sometimes the struggle is more than any sane person can bear. I won't judge your father for his jihad, Salahudin. How dare I, when I couldn't begin to understand it?“

“Anger doesn't really cover what I feel, though. You get angry because someone almost runs you over in the bike lane. Angry because someone cuts in line at Walmart.

What's the word for when someone drinks so much, they are ruining your best friend's life? Or the word for a man so vengeful about his own past that he wants to destroy your future? What's the word for a woman who was sick for months, but refused to go to the doctor until it was too late? The word for a girl at school whose personal mission is to mess with your head?

That's what this feeling is, eating me up”

“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.”

“I wonder what it’s like to be with someone who can love you through your rage.”

Emily Klo

Sometimes, I feel like the language of my body is equally unfathomable. I’ll die being the only person who ever knew how to speak it.

I’ll survive this. I'll live. But there's a hole in me, never to be filled. Maybe that's why people die of old age. Maybe we could live forever if we didn't love so completely. But we do. And by the time old age comes, we're filled with holes, so many that it's too hard to breathe. So many that our insides aren't even ours anymore. We're just one big empty space, waiting to be filled by the darkness. Waiting to be free.

Kaia Mann

Ill survive this. I'll live. But there's a hole in me, never to be flled. Maybe that's why people die of old age. Maybe we could live forever if we didn't love so completely. But we do. And by the time old age comes, we're filled with holes, so many that it's too hard to breathe. So many that our insides aren't even ours anymore. We're just one big empty space, waiting to be filled by the dark- ness. Waiting to be free.

fc ♡

Lindsay

Leah | @LeahsLittlePleasures

All My Rage touched me deeply from the very beginning. I was emotionally immersed from the very first pages and deliberately read slowly so that I could really grasp the atmosphere and the characters.

What I particularly liked was the lightness with which Sabaa Tahir deals with complex topics. Things like religion or identity are not dramatized, but simply presented as part of life - individual, different, normal. I found that very powerful.

A highlight for me was how subtly the novel deals with the inner conflicts of the characters. Many of their “flaws” or problems were not explained immediately, but only made visible bit by bit. There were several ‘aha’ moments when I suddenly realized the full extent of a situation. This reticence made the revelations all the more powerful.

I developed a great deal of empathy for the protagonists - I was able to emotionally accompany Salahudin in particular. His development, especially the process of letting go and grieving at the end, was strong and moving. I was also very touched by Noor's path to more self-confidence, to the realization that she is loved and that her potential is seen.

However, some of the characters remained a little vague for me. For example, I couldn't do much with Jamie. Her hatred, envy and jealousy seemed exaggerated and were not sufficiently explained for me - what was the trigger? Chachu's behavior was also difficult for me to understand. I understand that he had to abandon his studies due to his family responsibilities, but his mistreatment of Noor remained too extreme and not motivated enough for me. I would also have liked Brooke to stand by Noor more - her passivity frustrated me.

And then: Auntie Misbah. Her death really hit me - just when I felt like I understood and loved her better, Sabaa takes her from us. That was hard, but I understand why it was narratively necessary. Still, ouch.

All My Rage is a powerful, emotional book about loss, love, anger, belonging, and finding a place in life. It reminded me how important it is not to rush to judgment - because we never know what other people are going through. It shows how much it means when just one person believes in us - and how strong we can become when we do the same ourselves.

Sophie

All My Rage touched me deeply from the very beginning. I was emotionally immersed from the very first pages and deliberately read slowly so that I could really grasp the atmosphere and the characters.

What I particularly liked was the lightness with which Sabaa Tahir deals with complex topics. Things like religion or identity are not dramatized, but simply presented as part of life - individual, different, normal. I found that very powerful.

A highlight for me was how subtly the novel deals with the inner conflicts of the characters. Many of their “flaws” or problems were not explained immediately, but only made visible bit by bit. There were several ‘aha’ moments when I suddenly realized the full extent of a situation. This reticence made the revelations all the more powerful.

I developed a great deal of empathy for the protagonists - I was able to emotionally accompany Salahudin in particular. His development, especially the process of letting go and grieving at the end, was strong and moving. I was also very touched by Noor's path to more self-confidence, to the realization that she is loved and that her potential is seen.

However, some of the characters remained a little vague for me. For example, I couldn't do much with Jamie. Her hatred, envy and jealousy seemed exaggerated and were not sufficiently explained for me - what was the trigger? Chachu's behavior was also difficult for me to understand. I understand that he had to abandon his studies due to his family responsibilities, but his mistreatment of Noor remained too extreme and not motivated enough for me. I would also have liked Brooke to stand by Noor more - her passivity frustrated me.

And then: Auntie Misbah. Her death really hit me - just when I felt like I understood and loved her better, Sabaa takes her from us. That was hard, but I understand why it was narratively necessary. Still, ouch.

All My Rage is a powerful, emotional book about loss, love, anger, belonging, and finding a place in life. It reminded me how important it is not to rush to judgment - because we never know what other people are going through. It shows how much it means when just one person believes in us - and how strong we can become when we do the same ourselves.

loisesya

Esmeralda

Sabaa Tahir’s writing captures the waves that pull you from more stable shores in the form of grief, trauma, and all other compounding hardships that seem to spring up when you’re already having a difficult enough time. The choking feeling you fight to stifle by screaming out in rage to some higher power more than capable of saving you, but yet seems to refuse to.

It’s cathartic in its confrontation with grief, healing in its love and forgiveness. It’s real and human and grounded. It’s meditative and contemplative. It’s the exhale I was finally able to muster out.

joana ashley

Sabaa Tahir’s writing captures the waves that pull you from more stable shores in the form of grief, trauma, and all other compounding hardships that seem to spring up when you’re already having a difficult enough time. The choking feeling you fight to stifle by screaming out in rage to some higher power more than capable of saving you, but yet seems to refuse to.

It’s cathartic in its confrontation with grief, healing in its love and forgiveness. It’s real and human and grounded. It’s meditative and contemplative. It’s the exhale I was finally able to muster out.

Tatiana

All My Rage: 5/5

Premise:
All My Rage is a depth-defying, heart-breaking, and visceral coming-of-age novel that details the struggles of two Pakistani teenagers and families as they try to follow the American Dream.

Writing & Plot:
This book is difficult but not for the reasons you may think. Five stars I don't think quantifies my love for this book. At some points, it doesn't even feel like a book, but like a diary. You can feel Sabaa Tahir through the story as her heart bleeds onto the page. This story feels alive like Sabaa Tahir ripped off a piece of her soul and formed it into words for us to read. All My Rage is deeply personal, heartbreaking, and hopeful, almost as if you’re reading something you shouldn't have access to.

This book is technically young adult, but I would argue that it’s only because the characters are in high school. All My Rage deals with an onslaught of different emotional and traumatic topics that I think ride the cusp of YA/Adult. Regardless of its placement, All My Rage can be enjoyed by people of all ages (maybe 16+).

Characters:
Noor and Salahudin are two of the greatest characters I have read in a book. They are messy and complex, but they are real and tangible. This book clearly encompasses so much human experience into one character it’s impossible to not feel for them.

Not only does the reader feel intense emotions for our two main characters, but also the incredible side characters as well. I felt the rage they felt, the tears they spilled, the laughter in the air. This book is a journey I am incredibly grateful to have been part of.

The romance as well as incredibly heartfelt. The romance plot is such a small piece but added so much. By no means is it perfect and I think that is what I loved about it. I wanted something messy and heartbreaking that felt like it belonged to them, and that is what I received. 

Conclusion:
I’ve never said this before but this entire book screams perfection. It is so emotional I didn't have the capacity to express my internal feelings except to sob. I sobbed through the happy parts, the sad parts, and everything in between. Everything about All My Rage ties together. The cover, the title, even the spacing between the lines makes me rethink how books should be written. This is a cohesive masterpiece and I cannot express my love for it enough. I feel like every book I have ever rated should be knocked down one star, because how can any book that I have read thus far in my life even touch the complexity that is All My Rage. 

I know that all sounds dramatic but this is my favorite book of all time. It burrowed down inside me and has nestled its way into the deepest parts of my soul. I will never forget this book, and not a day will go by in the near future when I don't think about Noor and Salahudin. It's a story that will stick with you, that you demand your friends to read, or you beg your school system to put in the curriculum. This book is everything.

I will never stop talking about it.

fatru tamzil

"There's more to life than the things in front of you. Sometimes we hold on to things we shouldn't. People. Places. Emotions. We try to control all of it, when what we should be doing is trusting something bigger." 

-All My Rage, Sabaa Tahir, pg. 364.

Trigger warning: drug and alcohol addiction, physical abuse, Islamophobia, mentions of repressed sexual assault, tense exchange with law enforcement, death.

This book breaks me, in a really good way. 

All My Rage is about two teenagers, and a mother--Noor, Salahudin, and Misbah, and how their lives intertwined with each other. How two families deals with the trauma and the cost of dreaming--of leaving everything behind and starting from the scratch. 

As I stated on the start, this is not an easy read. Noor and Salahudin's journey are rocky and very difficult to read, but reading them and feeling the shards of hope, of remembering, of getting and fixing your mistakes, it's all very worthed it in the end. Misbah's story broke my heart the most, because not only she was a mother that care and love her childrens--all of them fiercely, she is also a very strong woman who had to deal with so much things, and a wise one at that. 

Sabaa Tahir's writing is extraordinary and it grips you from the start (this book has one of the best opening line I've read "The clouds over Lahore were purple as a gossip's tongue the day my mother told me I would wed), the writing will tugs at your heartstrings, the characters and relationship will stay with you long after you close the book. It is a story about losing and gaining, but at the heart, it is a story about acceptance, forgiveness, and faith. Even when the bleakest moment, the things when faith seems to be slipping off your fingers. 

Speaking about faith, this book is very much, unapologetically, Muslim. Every character has a complicated and nuanced relationship to the faith itself. Every journey of that in this book is very delighful to read. 

I can't really put all my feelings towards this book in one review, but I suggest you read it. Read it, then see for yourself how fate, dreams, and a mother's love could spin a whole story of two families.

if Sabaa is gonna do anything she’s gonna put me in a depressive episode and guess what!!!!! She’s done it again!!!

Anna Oeltjenbruns

Elizabeth Wood

I don’t have enough praise for this book. Breathtaking in all the best ways. 💕 The writing was absolutely beautiful.

Lots of trigger warnings: please take them seriously. The book does contain heavy content.

Sydney Butler

A very good read with fully drawn characters who you really get to know. There’s a moment when I wanted to shout to the main character “noooooo, don’t do that!!!” And it gave me all kinds of triggery feels–I was genuinely invested in these characters. 

Jeannette Ordas

The power of forgiveness is unbelievably strong. 

Veronica Overholt

lea da silva

i don’t even have words. this was the best book i have read this year and the best book i have read in a while. it was so beautiful, so honest and pure and gentle and brutal. i loved both sal & noor like friends, i rooted for them every step of the way. i loved misbah’s chapters most of all because they were always so beautifully written and the love i could feel from them was always so intense. it’s a wonderful book and i hope many, many people read it because it’s worth all the love and attention. thank you sabaa tahir for this, thank you for representing two broken characters and showing that there is hope for them

Stephanie Ridiculous

Whew. What a book.

This book was 5 stars all the way. It's pretty rare that I highlight passages in a fiction book, but Tahir's prose here was so touching & beautiful - the essence of Noor and Salahudin lovingly painted across the page. My inner traumatized teen felt really seen by Tahir & loved and cared for with how Noor & Salahudin's stroy develops and resolves. I teared up quite a bit, had to take a few breaks, and was totally invested in the long haul - signs of an excellent story. 

Also big shoutout to Tahir for including a content warning page directly in the book. For those trying to decide if you should pick it up here's a brief summary: child abuse (both physical and sexual. Physical happens on page once and is referenced several times, sexual is only referenced), alcohol and drug abuse, racism and Islamophobia, death of a parent, mental illness, generational trauma, among a few others. All are handled with an abundance of love and respect.

Anna Cashman

The world is cruel and I just want good things for Noor and Salahudin.

Lillian

continuing my time-honored tradition of reading fiction that follows a family of colour-ish through generations (very ish) except this time it's ya contemporary instead of litfic. anyways, this book broke me

Avery Baumel

Good? Absolutely. Brilliant? No way. Loved this but the length of the teaser alone tells you how complicated this is. I remember having a slow read here too because it didn’t grab me. Characters I think.

Steph L 

my god this was a tough and emotional read. i feel a massive headache coming through from all the crying i did, but all my rage is worth all the tears. reading this was so heart wrenching, but despite it all, sabaa tahir knows when to give her readers hope. she knows how to verbalize what i'm not able to say about how i feel, and she definitely knows how to make her characters seem so real, that i forgot this was a story and it was going to end.

but the thing is, this wasn't just a story. all my rage and its characters raised difficult but important truths about society and about individuals. Salahudin's and Noor's life experiences aren't just their own because it bared heartbreaking truths about people of color and about survivors of abuse. all my rage deserves to be discussed and the issues raised in this book should be taught & shared to people. 

one day, i would hopefully have the right words to capture how i felt reading this book, but right now, all i can say really is read it. read it, understand it, and talk about it. i can't emphasize enough how much i recommend this. 

(check trigger warnings!)

Livia

honestly, I was nitpicky on one small stuff but I'm rating it 5 stars anyways because it was just THAT GOOD. I love all the three perspectives we follow. Their stories are incredibly heartbreaking and I love how each character is fleshed out and has their own struggles, I also love seeing each character from another's pov. This was definitely not an easy read, it's very heavy to go through, but I think it's an important one. Especially if you're a Muslim or an immigrant or both, you might find yourself relating to some parts, which I really wish that you don't have to. I'm also in awe of how Sabaa Tahir portrayed rage in this book, how much it does consume someone inside out, and the outcome of it. All in all, this is definitely one of my favorite YA contemporaries, even if I don't read them as much.

This is truly such a beautiful story, there are so many emotions. It was one of my favorites of the year! I loved it so much!

Emi Gilmore 

Now this book is a lot to take it, and a lot to think about, but it was absolutely beautiful in the most heartbreaking of ways.

Liz Griffin

Thank you Libro.FM for the Audiobook Listening Copy (I also bought the hardcover for myself).

It will come as no surprise to fans of Sabaa’s fantasy series, An Ember in the Ashes quartet, that the characters in All My Rage leap off the page, as real as any high school classmates. This deeply moving and compelling novel sets a new standard for YA contemporary.

Please take note of the trigger warnings (provided at the beginning of the audiobook and hardcover text).

"Many authors talk about 'the book of my heart.' I tore this book from my heart. It's a story that demanded to be told, a love letter to the desert and good music and tiny motels and the kinds of friendships that save your life." —Sabaa Tahir

This book hurts… a lot. It’s filled with so much pain and grief and hurtful things. But also so many small, beautiful and wonderful things. It speaks volumes. It’s powerful and moving and will definitely leave its mark. It has on me.

I devoured 95% of this story in one sitting. It consistently left me hand-to-mouth gasping, tearful and gut-punched throughout, and by the end, bittersweetly and completely whole. I felt for these characters, longed and grieved with them, hoped for them, dreamed with them. Sabaa's writing is stunning.

Sal and Noor are childhood best friends, both burdened with so many immense, extraneous situations, when a disastrous event rips them apart.

There is a lot of heartbreak and loss in this story - it's devastating and emotionally charged, wrapped up in so much beauty, hope, and healing. It touches on unfathomable things and acute situations that make this a profound and imperative read.

"I see now that you were always two halves of a whole, two hands interlaced, two voices raised to a melody sung in time."

I’d love to get Salahudin and Noor’s next chapter. 🥺🧡

THIS BOOK HAS:
— childhood best friends
— all the classic tunes x fantasy nerd things
— multiple POVs
— young but forever love
— tragedy x harsh realities
— second chances x rediscovery
— family, faith, hope, love
— multi-generational x now & then storylines

Please be sure to check all the content warnings at the start of the book. Possible Triggers:
racism/Islamophobia, drug & alcohol abuse/addiction, child/domestic abuse, repressed trauma, illness, death, tense interactions with law enforcement.

Thank you Penguin Teen for the e-arc 🧡

Victoria Justice

All my Rage is a devastatingly honest, emotionally raw and beautifully written story, told over three individual POVs of their interwoven life within a Pakistani community. Its a story that covers forgiveness, heartache, racism, and love, as these characters struggle with grief and the destructive path it can lead to.

The writing is like poetry at times, with myself stopping to reread sections that really made me want to bask in the words for a little bit longer.

My favourite part of this book has to be the music references. Music has always been my release, my way to process, and having these little references to songs and albums. These helped me to understand the feelings and thoughts of the characters more, giving the characters more depth and the story more power.

This story opened my eyes, the characters touched my heart, and the message will live inside my mind forever. Its everything I expected and so much more.

Leah | @LeahsLittlePleasures &
All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

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Leah | @LeahsLittlePleasures &All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

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Leah | @LeahsLittlePleasures &
All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir