Antonia Bernardin

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir was the 27th book I read this year. This author also wrote The Ember in the Ashes series, which I absolutely loved so I just bought this book on faith, even though it’s a completely different genre.

A summary attempt

This book moves between the POV’s of Noor and Sal in the present and Misbah, Sal mum, in the past and present. The story is interspersed with Misbah’s chapters which jump between Misbah’s life in Pakistani, her marriage and subsequent journey to America and her present, running a failing motel, very ill and with an alcoholic husband. In the beginning of the story in the present day, Noor and Sal had a huge falling out about a year ago and they are just finally talking to each other again.

Noor is being raised by her Uncle, a bitter man who blames her for his crappy life because he had to give up university when he took her in. Noor and Sal became friends when she joined his school as a traumatised little girl, whose parents had just died and who had been ripped away from everything she knew and taken to a country whose language she didn’t speak, because Sal could speak both English and his mother tongue.

Events occur (no spoilers so I’m going to be pretty vague) that bring them back together and leaves Sal trying to figure out how to save the Motel. Noor is trying to get into college without her Uncle finding out, as he wants her to run his liquor store when she graduates so that he can go back to college because she owes him that. Sal makes some pretty poor decisions trying to earn enough money to save the Motel and pay of their debt, which not only get him into trouble but they end up involving Noor and jeopardising her whole future too. This betrayal ruins everything, bringing all that they’ve both worked so hard for crashing down.

My thoughts

This is a really beautiful book, it’s kind of hauntingly tragic in that way of life just occurring to these people and how a series of tragedies, combined with generational curses like alcoholism, causes a chain of events that seem inevitable. The flash backs between Misbah’s life before the U.S and all she dreamed she would achieve and the reality in the present are heartbreaking but also we discover how her love for Noor and Sal were her life’s blessing instead.

The imagery in this book is beautiful and Noor’s love of music is interwoven through these descriptive scenes, as is Misbah’s Pakistani sayings and wisdoms. I don’t always find that contemporary fiction really hooks me into the world the way fantasy can but this book really felt like I was falling into these character’s lives. Sal and Noor carry so much rage for the cards life has dealt them and this books takes us on the journey of them making peace with that rage and striving, in spite of everything, for a better life, just like Misbah dreamed for them.

This book made me cry but, in like, a good way? Definitely recommended it!