All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

All My Rage is a contemporary fiction novel written for ages 14 to 18.  I will review this book in the category of a National Book Award Winner.

All My Rage follows Salahudin and Noor in the wake of the death of Salahudin's mother, Misbah, who was also a surrogate mother to Noor. Both teens are trying to escape the different abusive circumstances that they find themselves in, and, with the death of Misbah, both feel their hope for that escape dwindle.

I wanted to include a National Book Award winner in this assignment. I chose to read All My Rage because it included a Pakistani perspective and because of the various awards and positive editorial reviews it received.

In this review, I will be evaluating tension, theme, and setting.

One of the greatest points of tension within All My Rage exists between Sal and Noor. While at the start of the book the two best friends are grappling with a major fallout, they quickly repair their relationship in the wake of Misbah's death. As the novel continues, their relationship is on the verge of something more, but both teens are keeping secrets from the other, which creates a barrier between them that their relationship struggles to overcome. Specifically, Sal is keeping the fact that he is selling drugs a secret from Noor. While he justifies the secret by saying he doesn't want to hurt her, in truth he keeps the secret because he knows how much it would disgust Noor, who aspires to be a doctor, to see that he was dealing drugs. As Sal becomes more entrenched in his role as a drug dealer, this secret between the two characters' lives as a silent threat that Sal believes he can contain but that the readers know must be exposed. This tension beneath Sal and Noor's love story drives the plot forward and adds interest to an otherwise sweet romance, albeit one that leans heavily upon the familiar best friend-to-boyfriend trope.

Sal's decision to sell drugs also highlights one of the book's major themes, the high cost of the American Dream. Misbah's dream was to own the family's motel, the Cloud's Rest Inn Motel. When she learns that she has developed severe kidney failure, she chooses to hide the disease to protect her family from the pain they will feel over her sickness. She also chooses to avoid treatment, preferring to spend her time and money keeping the motel alive rather than on dialysis. Misbah views the motel as a child, as her future, as the thing that will allow her to live on, and so she gives her life for the motel, as a mother would for a child. She sacrifices her life and her health for the sake of her American Dream. Unfortunately, as her health deteriorates, so does the health of the motel. At the time of her death, the hotel is also on the verge of financial ruin. Sal, devastated that he failed to save his mother from the kidney failure that killed her, begins selling drugs to gain the money needed to save her hotel. An otherwise 'good kid', a teen with high grades, who respects his mother, and is friends with everyone, Sal justifies this serious transgression by saying he is doing it for the sake of his mother's dream. His criminality, the pain it causes Noor and his father, and the time he spends in prison are a direct result of the pressure he felt to bring to life his own mother's American Dream. While his choices were his own, something that Tahir makes clear to the reader rather than painting Sal as a victim without agency, his choices were informed by a system that told him he could do anything and promised him the immigrant success story but provided him with no resources to achieve the promise.

Finally, the setting of All My Rage grounds the story for its intended readers. Though the novel explores complex topics like drug abuse, alcoholism, physical abuse, immigration, death, and grief, it all takes place within a high school setting. Thus, while our protagonists are facing serious adult issues, they are also dealing with more universal teen issues, such as bullying and college admissions. This is an important aspect of the novel because it was written for young adults. Making sure that some of the central conflicts of the novel are relatable to the audience at large (because of course many teens do deal with the more mature topics that All My Rage addresses) makes All My Rage more widely accessible to teens. Without the high school setting, the larger conflicts might feel too intimidating for teen readers and discourage them from engaging with this book. Even with the central role high school plays in All My Rage, the novel covers mature topics and is better suited for older teens than some other YA literature that is suited for teens aged 13 to 15.

Tahir, S. (2023). All my Rage. Razorbill.