All the Rage by Courtney Summers
My rating:
You know all the ways you can kill a girl?
God, there are so many.
Do you know what haphephobia is? It's the fear to physical contact. I suffer from that. I don't feel comfortable when people try to hug me or touch me – not even by my family. It started when I was 11 years old.
I moved from the country I was born in November of 2007. The next year, I was the new girl at school. It didn't help that I was 2 years younger than everyone and that I was from another country – worse even, there's a lot of hatred towards my country. The kids in there loved to play jokes on me, for example, asking me out and invading my personal space and hugging me even when I didn't want to.
I never spoke up.
The next year, in 2009, I was again the new girl. And again, I was 2 years younger than the rest of the group. They thought that since I was younger, then I also was inferior. The same jokes were played. Once, I remember, I was in a break when a group came to me. I was alone. I had no friends. I thought they came with good intentions. I was 13, for god sake!
It turns out they didn't have good intentions.
I was sitting on a bank, and two guys from the group took places next to me, so I was in the center. They started with the same things I was so tired of, just this time, they talked about their dicks and how they knew I wanted to touch them.
I was scared to hell. I didn't know what to do. The girls that came with them were just there giggling. I wanted to plead to them, to make the guys stop, but they were just laughing. Thankfully, the bell sounded and it was time to go to classes. But in the way to our classrooms the guys still took me by the hands and they led the way.
For 4 years I was victim of the same things and I never spoke. I never spoke because I felt hated. I've always felt hated. Every time I asked my parents' help with something, they ignored me. They've always ignored me. In fact, just last week I was in a deep depression because literally everyone in my family told me they were happy I was gonna turn 18 this year because they would officially be rid of me.
Maybe this anecdote is not making sense and it's not such a horrible experience, but with every page I read of this book, I could not stop myself from thinking about that. I know I didn't suffer that same things Romy went through in this book, but I understood her.
She's had a difficult life. She was raped and no one believes her. And to make things worse, people not only think she's a liar – they also make fun of her and play horrible and cruel pranks on her. So obviously she feels there's no use for her to speak up. No one is going to take her seriously after all.
and how do you get a girl to stop crying?
You cover her mouth.
And the name of the book is simply perfect: All the Rage. Indeed, I was angry most of the time while reading this book. The things that happened to Romy were unfair and the people surrounding her were being awful.
At least not everyone in the book treated her like that, though. She had a wonderful mother and a great boyfriend who stops when he's told to stop – as it should be.
The themes addressed in this book are strong, but they're addressed in the correct way. Like, you get to feel how being a girl really is, that a victim of rape is not a weak person, etc. Courtney Summers is certainly a great author. She's now beaten my list of my favorite authors.
I'm not going to spoil you any more details about the book. I'm just going to say that you seriously need this book in your life. Every girl needs this book in her life.
Time passes or it doesn't, but it must – because it has to.
This was my second Courtney Summers book and it was better than the first. She's now in my list of insta-buy authors. We need more authors like her because she's great.
#ToTheGirls
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