Missy didn’t mean to cut so deep. But after the party where she was humiliated in front of practically everyone in school, who could blame her for wanting some comfort? Sure, most people don’t find comfort in the touch of a razor blade, but Missy always was … different. That’s why she was chosen to become one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War. Now Missy wields a new kind of blade – a big, brutal sword that can cut down anyone and anything in her path. But it’s with this weapon in her hand that Missy learns something that could help her triumph over her own pain: control. A unique approach to the topic of self-mutilation, Rage is the story of a young woman who discovers her own power and refuses to be defeated by the world.
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self-harm (cutting), vicious bullying, suicide
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While no one actually kills themselves, the protagonist does come close a few times to doing it by accident when she cuts herself. Both times she is saved by magic. The bullying is more prominent and is absolutely vicious.
Practical information
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication year: 2011
ISBN: 9780547445281
Age category: young adult
Disabilities portrayed: depression, mental illness
Genre: fantasy
Author
Jackie Morse Kessler is the author of the the Riders of the Apocalypse quartet for teen readers, along with several paranormal and dark fantasy books for adults. She lives in upstate New York.
I’ve had no experience with self-injury ... so I did a lot of research [for Rage]. What I didn’t have to research, though, is how the protagonist Missy felt: the torrent of emotions, the feeling like her chest is too tight and she can’t breathe, the extremes. I’ve been there. I think we all have been there. Writing the Riders [series] was emotionally draining. Channeling those feelings and capturing them in words was exhausting but also energizing. I suppose that’s catharsis.(Disability in Kidlit, May 2015)
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