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The Monday Book – All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

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Guest review by Janelle Bailey, avid reader and always learning; sometimes substitute teaching, sometimes grandbabysitting, sometimes selling books

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

86: All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

I added this book to my tbr list the very day I subbed in a local high school’s “at risk” classroom and learned that this was the book they were reading together as a class and wanting to–before I would sub for or even run into any of these kids again–read what they were reading.

As soon as I obtained it, it moved into “on deck,” and as soon as I could, I dug in and thoroughly devoured it. What. An. Important. Book.

Classified as “young adult” literature for its main characters, Sal and Noor, being young adults–high school seniors when the story starts–All My Rage is a book for all ages, teenagers and beyond, given its tremendously important content: loss and grief, racism, drug use and abuse, post-secondary education, alcoholism, relationships, music, and its various and very relevant themes. Everyone should read it…and then talk about it with others. Smart and thoughtful young adults reading it may feel “seen” and understood in variously valuable ways, and parents and grandparents, along with other adults playing those roles in young people’s lives–neighbors, as well as other family members–reading it may “see” those children’s and grandchildren’s lives in ways that are better understood and newly discussable, all of them able to talk, together, about the book and how they do and do not relate to its content in valuable new ways.

The book is very well-written, the stories told alternately from the points of view of Sal; his mother–Misbah–in earlier times; and Noor, his classmate and long-time friend. The three of them weaving together their current stories with the previous ones, together detailing how they’ve all gotten to “here” and “now” and then also working through that which comes up during the novel’s duration. We learn about others, as well–Sal’s father, Noor’s uncle and his wife, Sal and Noor’s classmates–yet all of them primarily from these other prime lenses and perspectives, their characters less “main” but not necessarily any less round or dynamic to the full story and its value, or the value of any conversations or discussions about them, furthering the book’s value.

There are some similarities between author Sabaa Tahir and main character, Sal–each living in their parents’ small family-run motels, for instance–so one does wonder if there’s even more that is common to their experience, this another example of some “auto-fiction.” I’m certainly of the mind that Tahir knows well her subjects and tells well the stories, so it’s entirely possible.

There are rich allusions to music and that layer of things, most especially a steady reference to a Johnny Cash and U2 collaboration, “The Wanderer,” to which I am just now listening. I was reminded, in experiencing this aspect of Noor’s character, of a number of students–including one especially treasured one in particular from many moons ago–who definitely listened to their music as distraction from all of the real noise coming in from all angles and as comfort and therapeutic soothing, centering and calming their souls and giving them strength. And this regular reference also reminded me of my own long ago brush with U2, running into their bass guitarist Adam Clayton at a rest area in the fall of 1990. Those were the days…(about which I still need to write, myself!). A super wonderful playlist could be created from the book’s mentioned titles, allowing a reader to hang in the musical mind of Noor and see some things like she did. And given Tahir’s own love of music and nerdiness, I suspect this might be a visit to her own musical tastes, too.

As a huge advocate of a good AP English classroom’s valuable purpose–reading good to great literature together and then helping kids to develop their discussion and writing skills to similar strength–I so valued this component of All My Rage‘s values as well. Tahir knows her stuff…and maybe had a good teacher and AP experience herself, that she writes about it this way. I also value tremendously that in the book the AP English teacher, Mrs. Michaels, teaches from her wheelchair, and I cannot help but LOVE the book’s entirety being a testament to a very favorite poem of mine, Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.” There is so much about this book to value and appreciate…and the layers and layers necessary for “literary fiction” that are well-met.

Additionally, that Tahir acknowledges up front the book’s “triggering” content, including Islamophobia, repressed sexual assault, and more…is very much in line with the practice of reading and even teaching books that include the tough stuff so that it can be discussed, talked about, processed, and more, rather than “banning” the best books to avoid alllllllll of those realities from being shared. It is only when we read and discuss and process–together–the best books that we learn the most important lessons.

Come back next Monday for another book review!

The Monday Book – Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea

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Guest review by Janelle Bailey, avid reader and always learning; sometimes substitute teaching, sometimes grandbabysitting, sometimes selling books

Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea

There is much about and inside of this book that I enjoyed and appreciated, from its place in chronicling this particular element in history to Urrea’s own acknowledgment and multiple times of his wife Cindy’s invested and dedicated participation in the research and development of the material. Why aren’t they co-authors, then, I’m wondering?

Urrea’s main idea, based on his own mother’s participation in the program, is that, starting during WW2, the American Red Cross (ARC) hired quantities of women to run coffee/donut/mail/music/ community support wagons, called ARC Clubmobiles, and sent them out to do this work on the frontlines, essentially. These women were casually referred to as the “Donut Dollies,” though one of Urrea’s main characters resents, over and over and over, being called that. My own quick research supports the idea that this name–“Donut Dolly”–stuck, and hard, and even stayed with these women well into the Vietnam War (the program existed until 1972, I believe), when they weren’t any longer even making donuts.

There are many things that the talented and well-evidenced storyteller, Urrea, does well, such as presenting language and lingo relevant to the time and place, the overall historical setting of the book. However, occasionally what they say in dialogue that makes sense and seems appropriate, time-wise, is juxtaposed with anachronisms in the storytelling/text in other ways, when words and terms, or tropes, more common now are used to talk about “then.”

Once engaged in Good Night, Irene and overseas with the ARC Clubmobiles, we readers spend most of our time with two Donut Dollies in particular, Irene and Dorothy. Irene has fled an abusive fiance in New York to “join up,” and Dorothy is a tall and hearty Midwesterner who quickly gains the nickname “Stretch.” How they fulfill their duties in the cause and move through a few “third girls” on their Clubmobile, being the two most steady on the Rapid City, and developing a reputation that keeps people together and remembering them, is an enjoyable, and the dominant, element of this story.

Urrea’s fine storytelling takes over and conveys the historical elements of these stories to tip the scales toward fiction, but via his rich imagery and description, the setting and situations all come very much alive, and he takes us right into the action and situations. Some concern develops for how safe–at all–it is for these gals to be driving around and navigating their way through this unknown and unsafe terrain, often with the threat of German bombers overhead, them having no idea where they are or where they are to be going.

And this also presents a hangup of confusion for this reader, as to whether those elements are true to the history of this situation, that these women were really left out there to figure this all out and take the major risks and then just provide coffee and donuts and cheer wherever they landed, or whether this is some of Urrea’s fiction. Maybe it is only this reader who becomes concerned that some of these things are less historically sound and then the story taking some deep romantic turns, too, and becoming even more about the fiction than the supporting of historical fact. And maybe that concern is deepened because said reader happens to also be listening to, at this same time when walking or traveling, another WW2 novel that has even less foundation in history and more in fiction and is also primarily a romance or few, and yet also with an abused woman who goes off to war to escape. The similarities between the two books are completely coincidental to my just happening to be reading them at the same time, but together they present a rather sexy interpretation of WW2 in unexpected ways. That’s not Urrea’s fault at all. I’m just having a hard time discerning the “truth” of things of the era.

Many readers will fully enjoy this visit to an earlier era and the stories shared in Good Night, Irene. Urrea’s own mother never really shared her own stories of these experiences with him before her passing, as I understand it, so he has given them all a “good life” here as he imagined them. And he honors her memory to have crafted them this way.

I’ll read everything Urrea writes, as I find him to be a master storyteller and a very accessible, honest, role model of an author for this day and age.

Come back next Monday for another book review!