This is Sabaa Tahir’s foray into the real world. She moves from Ember to the reality of All My Rage and she brings the emotion with her. I read this in a single sitting and that is telling enough.

Told from the point of three characters and moving through past and present, All My Rage touches upon topics that are valid for everyone. From the art of loss to grief, forgiveness, abuse, religion and kindness this is a novel that takes a deep dive into emotion and surfaces once every thread and knot of suffering has been unwound on a sea of self-realization. Following Misbah, Salahuddin and Noor through their different stories, Sabaa addresses the struggles that people go through in their lives and the people they encounter that teach them that there is more than what you experience in this one moment. There is more after this. Light after this.

 

“I was eighteen. Full of fear. I should have prayed instead for a man unbroken.”

~ Sabaa Tahir

 

Sabaa brings to life both the Mojave Desert and Lahore in vivid detail. She builds up the settings for the stories, penning a love letter to the place that housed her childhood and the place from where she comes. Desi culture is portrayed beautifully in this book. I am not religious and yet culturally I relate to the book. That is the point that Sabaa tries to make, that everyone experiences faith, spirituality, and culture differently, and it is a point that while not spoken about actively, comes across poignantly. There is diversity within faith and culture, but no one seems to give room to let others live through these concepts the way they want to.

When I was in high school, I was competing out of the city in a sociology tournament with a focus on religion and culture in India. When it ended, I was approached by one of the judges who wanted to ask me how I could defend Jihad in the Quran. I have been educated to believe that Jihad is the personal struggle someone goes through in life, but not everyone will interpret it that way, and those who are unaware will go with the mass opinion that it entails terrorism. This was the first time I saw the concept cleared in a young adult novel. What is so appalling is that so many people I have encountered on my journey won’t take the time to educate themselves. And that is the problem. It isn’t about this one concept it’s about the ignorance that we as people wear on our sleeves, ready to judge and dismiss anything that we are unable to understand.

This is a book for everyone. Because it talks about so many things that are so relevant to people everywhere. As people, we face abuse and racism and religious intolerance every day. We face unkindness every day. We carry fury within our veins from things that we take from others that we are not owed, and we let it lie dormant until it overcomes us in a tidal wave. I was once told that if you aren’t ‘a white man’ in this world you will be unsafe, be it now or later, here or elsewhere. This is a book that urges us to educate ourselves on cultures and experiences that we may not go through, because without that we will be unable to share the kindness the world desperately needs. This is a book that teaches us to respect others while living the lives we wish to.

This is a book for everyone.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – four stars,