Kelly's Reviews > All the Rage

All the Rage is an incredible, authentic, painful book that looks deep into what rape culture is and how rape culture impacts the lives of girls.

Romy embodies what it means to have everything that’s yours taken from you, and she fights back tooth and nail to regain not just a shred of herself but she fights back to ensure that other girls don’t have to endure what she has. That being made to be “less than” because of someone else’s actions isn’t OKAY.

This book is important, and it needs to be on your radar if you care about feminism, about rape culture, about girls and the way girls become victimized over and over again, especially when they’re already a victim. It’s about standing up when you know you are going to be knocked down again.

It’s a book about girls taking back what is rightfully theirs: the voices, their bodies, their place in society as humans.

Summers creates dynamic characters across the spectrum here, and without doubt, Romy is my favorite character she's written. Leon, one of the secondary characters, might be a close second to Romy, though. I also found myself really invested in Romy's mother in this story -- there was one part, in fact, where her mother made me cry with something she said to Romy. It hit one of those few soft spots I've got. Every character here is round, flawed, and compelling. Even the characters who filled me with rage and hate had me caring enough about them to allow those feelings to come up, hard, each time they returned.

The mystery is well-rendered, and the who-done-it element of this story never overpowers the greater story nor does it fall to the wayside. This isn't a book with a message, but the implications of what it is like to be a girl in a world that regularly chews them up and spits them up come through clearly in Romy and the entire diverse cast of characters.

I’ll say a lot more about All the Rage when it’s closer to release date, but if I had to give this a “meets,” it is spot on Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak meets Veronica Mars. This is Summers's best work, hands down, and her writing cuts straight to the bone. It's not friendly and it's not supposed to be.

But it's damn good.