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. 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.
All My Rage isn’t a book about food, necessarily, but Tahir’s care and attention to South Asian meals is one of many aspects of her latest novel that show the importance of feeling connected to home ... All My Rage is a love story, a tragedy and an infectious teenage fever dream about what home means when you feel you don’t fit in ... As the story bounces between their perspectives, the narration takes on a confessional feeling, as if the characters are individually sharing the truths about their relationships, their past regrets and their hidden desires ... Throughout All My Rage, Tahir centers brown teenagers and poignantly portrays how they yearn for a sense of home ... She captures the complex identity crisis that can come with being born in another country but growing up primarily in the United States ... I liked All My Rage as an adult. I would have absolutely loved it as a teenager.
Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes quartet is one of the most influential YA fantasy series of the past decade. In All My Rage, Tahir proves she’s just as skilled at contemporary realistic fiction ... All My Rage takes the often cliched all-American trope of two young people who long to leave their small town behind and fills it with moral complexity and emotional heft ... Tahir excels at conveying how trauma and tragedy ripple outward, shaping even the lives of those who seem untouched by darkness. Tahir explores weighty questions, such as how we can forgive someone for hurting us when they should have been protecting us, but she includes frequent moments of wry levity and solace ... All My Rage will likely make you cry, but it will definitely make you smile, too.
A moving story of grief and trauma but also forgiveness and love ... Salahudin’s vulnerability and true feelings emerge clearly in Khan’s narration. Meanwhile, Mohammed as Noor neatly balances her desperation, hope, and anger.
