Author: Courtney Summers
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Pages: 321
Format: Hardcover
Source: Chapters Indigo
Release Date: April 14, 2015
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
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I don’t believe in forgiveness. I think if you hurt someone, it becomes part of you both. Each of you just has to live with it and the person you hurt gets to decide if they want to give you the chance to do it again. If they do and you’re a good person, you won’t make the same mistakes. Just whole new ones.
I want to lovelovelove this book like how everyone loveloveloves this book. I want to post screaming reviews about how this book goes beyond five, beyond the universe, beyond anything that I have and will read. I do, I truly do. So keep that in mind when I say that will I liked this book, I didn’t lovelovelove it.
Courtney Summers writes about Romy Grey, a rape survivalist and a girl broken in the inside. She’s got her mom, her mom’s kind and more-than-a-father boyfriend, and Leon, the good part in her spiraling cloud of grey. After a party she can’t recall and horror she can’t put forward, Romy finds out that someone is missing – and that she might not be coming back.
Courtney writes beautifully and capitvatingly, and the formatting of certain sections are pure genius, delivering the message twice as powerful and thrice as deep.
The message is pure and true, and Summers doesn’t hesitate to get dark and dirty, to say things many authors would shy away from, and to expose the raw pain and fury a girl feels when she’s raped.
Raped.
One of the dirtiest words in the dictionary. I’m going to tell you this right now, that anyone you’ve met who’s been raped and is continuing their life, I can be almost 100% certain that they will be among the strongest people you’ve ever met in your life. Rape is traumatizing. Sometimes it can be a fate worse than death.
Romy Grey has scars. Deep, painful scars that have barely closed and gaping wounds still fresh and raw. She’s been exposed in horrifying ways, and she can feel herself dying slowly, bit by bit. But she is not broken; she has not collapsed. I think that Romy is – and quite possibly will remain – the strongest character I’ve seen so far. Not because she wears pants and waves a sword. Not because she parades around, announcing that she doesn’t need a man to protect her. It’s because Romy can keep on moving, keep on living, despite the horribly backlash she receives, being isolated from her peers and branded a liar, slut, attention-whore. She hasn’t broken yet, and I’ve got the feeling she won’t, ever.
The message in here is also fresh and brutally honest, pain and fury simmering beneath the surface of the writing. The officer who doesn’t believe her, the people wishing she was the one that went missing, the adults that mark her as a waste of time for her disappearance – it’s all so sickening, so horrifying to read, because sometimes that does happen, that the ones who’ve done wrong get away with it and the victim faces shunning and name-calling and that absolutely disgusts me.
All The Rage does an excellent way of bringing all these dark parts of life to light, exposing the dirty side of everyday living. She conveys a powerful message, with gorgeous prose and a hardened character who doesn’t take crap from anyone.
So, why the low rating?
The timeline, for one, threw me in a bit of a loop. At some points I’ve gotten confused, and not all my confusion had cleared up by the end of the story like I hoped it would. And while I am aware that this book is not meant to have plenty of action and is more of a character-based story than anything else, I still feel unsatisfied, like I hoped there would be something exciting to happen, to spark a fire in me. The message is fantastic, don’t get me wrong. That part alone deserves five shining stars. But I’m reviewing this book as a whole, and unfortunately some parts just don’t measure up.
Can I also mention that I’m disappointed we didn’t get to meet Kellan? He’s mentioned in the story, a hovering presence that weighs Romy down and clutches her throat when his name is said, but we don’t actually get to meet him. No appearance from Mr. Bad Guy himself, which led to some disappointments.
This was my first Summers book, and it was a great read. I do hope to read more in the future, because I absolutely love her writing.
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