All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

 

All My Rage

April 13th, 2024

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir 2022, Realistic Fiction, 374 pages

2022 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winner, 2022 National Book Award for Young People's Literature winner

All of My Rage mainly follows the complicated lives of two childhood best friends: Sal and Noor. Drawn together by their common label as outcasts in their small town of Juniper and their Pakistani culture, Sal and Noor have helped each other through thick and thin. Well, until the day they had a major argument that puts a halt to their cherished friendship. Suddenly, the two friends find themselves grappling with the unthinkable all on their own. Sal struggles to keep his family's motel open after the death of his mother with zero support from his alcoholic father. How far will Sal go to get the money needed to keep his mother's dream alive? Noor herself grieves Sal's mother as well, but she is not allowed to show it. Noor's uncle manipulates every aspect of her life: he will do anything to ensure she stays at his liquor store while he pursues his American, academic dreams instead. Just as Noor and Sal begin to help each other cope through their struggles, one small decision of Sal's will permanently change the trajectory of their lives, and relationship, forever. 

I chose to read All My Rage because my coworkers highly recommended the novel to me at the end of last school year. They knew it would be a book that would move me to tears--and it sure did! As I read the back of the book I became intrigued that it would tell a story across generations of Pakistani characters and from different points of view. I realized I had never read a book with any Pakistani characters before and hoped to gain better insight into their culture. Additionally, I am a sucker for any book that centers around love, family, and overcoming life's harshest obstacles! 

Teaching and Content Considerations:

I believe All My Rage is best suited for high school students and above due adult language, drug use, physical abuse, and references to possible sexual abuse. Tahir actually provides trigger warnings for her readers about this topic before the very first chapter! Hence, teachers should be aware of these topics and their group of students before moving forward with this novel. Despite its mature content, All My Rage would work well as a whole class novel, lit circle novel, or independent reading novel if implemented cautiously. Students who enjoy books with alternating points of view, realistic fiction that focuses on some of the darker problems in the world, books that explore other cultures, or students who enjoy novels with suspenseful, heart-wrenching drama and secrets will love this spectacular story!

Instructional Ideas

Inferences: (Spoiler ahead) Through Tahir's alternating timeline's and perspectives, readers are given hints about Sal's trauma, the cause of Sal's father's (Toufiq) drinking problem, and the physical abuse Noor experiences at home. Each day while reading, students could jot down at least one question they believe the author has left unanswered in their reading notebook and provide their best inference to respond to the question. Ideally, students will begin to notice patterns in the novel and draw accurate conclusions about some of the character's biggest secrets.

Impact of Setting: Many times throughout the book, the setting and who the character is with impacts the character's actions. Students could take a closer look at: Noor in her Uncle's liquor shop, Noor's aunt inside her home v outside, Sal near the laundry room, Sal in the Cloud Inn with his mom and Noor vs Sal in the Cloud Inn with only his dad. Besides explaining how the character acts differently in each setting, students could also infer why that specific setting (and/or company) changes their behavior in a noticeable manner. 

Music and writing as coping tools: (Spoiler ahead) Readers will quickly notice that Noor is constantly listening to music, and sharing it will Sal, to make it through her everyday life. As a post-reading activity, students could create a playlist that captures the conflicts, characterization, and emotions of a different character's perspective: Sal's. Additionally, readers eventually find out that Mishba's chapters have actually been written by Sal as a way to process the grief of losing his mother. Hence, another post-reading activity could challenge the students to write a companion chapter from Sal's father's point of view. Just as Sal tried to understand his own mother's actions and unspoken regrets, readers could infer how Toufiq's life becomes undeniably altered as a young man.

Possible Read Aloud Passages

• Pages 25-26: "You will have your children far from here. Three...A boy. A girl. And a third that is not she, her, nor of the third gender. You will fail them all."
• In this scene, the novel flashes back to when Sal's mother, Misbah, is alive and a young women. Misbah goes to see a fortune teller to reveal her future. This is a great scene for students to make inferences about the three "children" and predict how Misbah will fail them.
• Pages 63-65: "I figured that such thoughts would prepare me for her death. They didn't. I'll survive this. I'll live. But there's a hole in me, never to be filled. Maybe that's why people die of old age. Maybe we could live forever if we didn't love so completely. But we do. And by the time old age comes, we're filled with holes, so many that it's too hard to breathe. So many that our insides aren't even ours anymore. We're just one big empty space, waiting to be filling by the darkness. Waiting to be free." 
• This passage is so incredibly beautiful that it has to be read out loud! In this moment, Sal finally succumbs to grief about his mother's passing after the funeral. This would be an awesome passage for students to close read; who else has holes? What caused them and how has it changed the character?
• Page 119: "'I think you should sell them. Not me'...Sudden fear constricts my chest. Seven seconds in Five seconds out."
• Drowning in bills that his drunk father can't pay off, Sal becomes desperate to make money and keep his mom's hotel, Cloud's Rest, open. The local drug dealer at school, Art, has offered to help Sal sell drugs to students at their high school for extra cash.
• Pages 170-171: "What's the word for when someone drinks so much, they are ruining your best friend's life? Or the word for a man so vengeful about his own past that he wants to destroy your future?...Anger's not the right word. Rage. That's what this feeling is, eating me up. I scream into the cold night...My better sense kicks in. I bottle my rage. Shove it deep in my head."
• Noor is reflecting on all of the hardships that Sal, Misbah, and herself have been forced to endure. Noor suddenly feels overcome with absolute rage at how unfair life can be. However, Noor is not one to share her burdens with others. Noor finds herself absolutely lost and simply wishes Misbah were alive to help her figure it out.

Thoughts and Reflections

I was absolutely blown away by All My Rage. Tahir's beautiful prose had me rereading passages to commit certain lines to memory. All My Rage drags you down into the deepest of emotional trenches of its characters. Readers experience heartbreak, grief, utter rage, desperation, and the powerful force of love that ultimately gives the characters a reason to keep on going. 

After reading this novel, I am convinced I need to read any other novel Sabaa Tahir has written! This novel has also made me a bit more curious about arranged marriage in Pakistan. I'd like to know if this is still a common practice, or if it was much more of normal many decades ago.