All My Rage by Sabar Tahir

This is aimed at Young Adults, and is a powerful look at the effects of poverty, racism, the pervasiveness of substance abuse and domestic violence, and how all of this echoes across generations, which makes happy endings unlikely. It is a contemporary novel that ricochets across time and place. In past Pakistan, Misbah weds Toufiq in an arranged marriage that results in a move to California after upheaval at home. Now they run a small hotel in the Mojave Desert. Their son Salahudin and dear family friend Noor hold a connection bound by their history and the challenges they face due to Islamophobia, racism, and more. When his mother’s health fails and his father battles alcoholism as he grieves, the financial and maintenance aspects of the hotel fall to Sal, who takes drastic measures to save the hotel his mother loved so very much. Simultaneously, Noor is striving to leave her uncle’s grasp by planning to go away to college, but finds herself caught up by Sal’s choices. The prose unpacks both the beautiful and the brutal and the author deftly captures the layers of grief, rage, family, examination of faith, and forgiveness, while managing to inject levity into dire situations and provide a semblance of hope.