TPL Teens

Review by Fariha, member of the Albert Campbell Youth Advisory Group. 

Trigger Warning: Rape 

How do you get a girl to stop crying?

You cover her mouth.

The first time I started reading this book, back when it was just released, I read the first three pages and closed it. I decided I would read it when I was in a better mindset, when I was ready to read it. I read a few reviews for it and tried to prepare myself. I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the brutal honesty and the raw emotions this book entices.

The summary provided on the book seems almost flimsy compared to its contents. The sentence that I feel even comes close to explaining what happens in the book is the very last one: “All the Rage examines the shame and silence inflicted upon young women after an act of sexual violence, forcing us to ask ourselves: In a culture that refuses to protect its young girls, how can they survive?”

The situations and events in this book are so startlingly accurate, the high school drama and politics, the town gossip, the prejudice, hte trust given and broken, a girl or two raised and broken. How the trusted adults focus more on how the repercussions will affect the perpetrator than how the crime affected the victim. Hah, Brock Turner anyone? People in power just quietly and easily shutting down anything and anyone in their path. Certain people getting a pass simply because of how they look, who their parents are, who they’re friends with, their wealth, their status. I’m in awe of how Courtney Summers fit all that into this 300 page slice of reality.

…and then I’m ready.

...and then I’m ready.

...and then I’m ready.

All the characters in the book are complex and so real. Some of them I hated with everything in me but some of them I understood even as I disagreed with or was angered by their actions. Romy is a strong main character whose struggles and shortcomings strengthen her.

There are some books that you just can’t put down, that mark their claim on the reader and drag them in. This book had the opposite effect on me. I could barely go through a few pages without having to pace around the house, just… thinking and reflecting, sometimes sad and sometimes impossibly angry. This book reaches in and knocks on your heart, knocks on your brain, asking you to think using both.

This book is honest. This book is honest and I hate it, hate that this is what reality’s truly like. It’s so, so honest and it hurts.

You know all the ways you can kill a girl?

God, there are so many.