Book Review: All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir highlights the significance of friendship, family, and forgiveness. Protagonists Salahuddin and Noor are all each other have, but they haven’t been on speaking terms since the fight.

Salahuddin has his parents, but his mother is sick, and his father hasn’t been the same since his mother got ill. Noor has her uncle who took her in when the rest of her family was killed in an earthquake. He wants her to take over his store instead of attending college, so Noor hides the fact that she applied to some from him. Her hope is that one day she’ll be able to leave her uncle’s home to pursue her dreams.

These two teens are struggling to survive and escape their realities, and they need to learn to lean on each other if they want to succeed.

Highlights

• The story is told from three perspectives: Misbah, Noor, and Salahuddin.
• I love how their stories are intertwined with each other; it feels complete.
• I adored all of the protagonists, and Misbah’s perspective was especially eye-opening.
• I’m an #ownvoices reviewer for the South Asian Muslim perspective, and even though the Muslim characters have different perspectives from my experience as a Muslim, I love how Sabaa writes Muslim characters in a respectful manner.
• Sabaa describes this book as being a very personal one for her.

Lowlights

• This isn’t an actual lowlight, but I think it would have been interesting to get Salahuddin’s dad’s perspective from when he was younger.

Final Thoughts: This book is an emotional rollercoaster! It’s heartfelt and touches on a lot of taboo subjects that are normally not discussed. Even though it’s marketed for YA, I would definitely say this is for an older audience. This book is mind-blowing, and Sabaa wrote another incredible masterpiece.

Disclaimer: Thank you to Penguin Teen for the copy of All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir. All opinions are my own.