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OLDER FICTION
Tahir, Sabaa

All My Rage

384 pp. | Penguin/Razorbill | March, 2022 | Trade ISBN 978-0-593-20234-0 $19.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-593-20235-7 $10.99
(2) YA In this stark and searing sort-of love story, two Pakistani American teens living in a California desert town struggle to choose connection over isolation when family crises strike. Salahudin--artsy, aimless, and anxious--feels the weight of the pressures posed by his sick mother, his alcoholic father, and the crumbling motel they own, which barely pays the bills. His ambitious and science-minded estranged childhood friend, Noor, needs a hefty scholarship to escape the domineering uncle with whom she lives, but gets rejections instead. Through chapters that alternate between their first-person perspectives, Sal and Noor tell intertwining stories of their urgent attempts to steer their own lives without support from family or their majority-white community. Sal's mother--whose potent flashbacks of her immigration when she was young are interspersed throughout--is a reliable model of faith and optimism for both teens; her sudden death at first draws Sal and Noor closer, but grief and guilt soon lead Sal to a cascade of risky, tension-raising decisions that threaten their futures. While some descriptive language, especially dreamy Sal's, borders on melodramatic, the tight focus on each teen's emotional experience reveals a rich layering of determination, trauma, anger, and integrity underneath their raw reactions. This is a brutal depiction of the toll taken on some young marginalized and working-class people trying to conquer the odds; watching Sal's and Noor's devastating loneliness finally give way to glimmers of hope is both satisfying and affecting.
Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

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