real<\/em>!\u201d Instead Missy is just scared out of her mind and decides not to think about the whole thing for a while.<\/p>\nUnfortunately for Missy, after one truly nightmarish party, embracing the powers of War seems to be the only thing she can turn to. She\u2019s a girl full of rage: rage at herself, her selfish sister, her cruel classmates, and the ex-boyfriend who heartlessly betrayed her. Everything inside her makes her want to strike out in anger, to the point where even Missy herself is scared.<\/p>\n
The greatest strength of Rage<\/em> is its tone. Many authors try to portray the pain of teenagers but with narrative distance that can make that pain look excessively dramatic and angsty. In Rage,<\/em> the metaphorical becomes beautifully literal. Missy doesn\u2019t just feel<\/em> like anger is radiating from her. It actually is<\/em>. Suddenly she isn\u2019t simply trying to control her emotions for the sake of her self-esteem or well-being. Instead, if Missy were truly reckless in letting her feelings loose, it could literally lead to the end of the world.<\/em><\/p>\nIn Rage,<\/em> Famine, War, Pestilence, and Death are still harbingers of the apocalypse, but with an interesting twist. Killing, destroying, and ending the world are things all the riders are capable of, but not options that they have to choose. Over the course of the book Missy learns that she can easily cause anyone to be angry, to be looking for a fight. What\u2019s harder is using her powers for good. \u00a0She also has the ability to make wars stop, if only for a day. She can use her experience from bottling up her emotions to take in and cut through the pain and anger of armies.<\/p>\nMissy\u2019s journey to become War is powerful because the magical consequences of it make her internal struggles feel that much more real. The epic stakes are the perfect illustration of how Missy\u2019s depression has always made her feel. Inside, she has always felt like the world hinged on her composure\u2014and now it does.<\/p>\n
Personally, I loved this book\u2019s portrayal of Missy\u2019s depression. One of the things that makes it such a difficult illness to live with is the way it\u2019s a difficult illness to believe in. Even if you are the one suffering from it, sometimes it\u2019s easier to say \u201cI\u2019m just sad a lot,\u201d \u201cI just have a bad life,\u201d or even \u201cI\u2019m just pathetic.\u201d Because depression feels like<\/em> it should have a simple emotional root. So you focus on little causes: a mean classmate, a disappointing date, an embarrassing mistake. But they never add up to enough to make sense of the pain depression gives you. And with that comes a sense of shame and judgment.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s easy to feel pathetic because you\u2019re in so much pain for seemingly tiny reasons. Rage<\/em> takes away that barrier. Missy has depression before she becomes War, but after that plot begins any discussion of her internal conflicts becomes impossible to trivialize. It made me feel safe to identify with her. Her pain was real and that helped me accept that my pain is real.<\/p>\nOne thing that should definitely be addressed is that Missy cuts herself. If that is a trigger for you, you may want to give Rage<\/em> a pass. It\u2019s a subject that\u2019s one of the central plotlines of the story. Throughout the book Missy has a very complicated relationship with her razor blade.<\/p>\nOn the one hand, she often thinks of it almost lovingly, as a secret tool that can always ease her pain. On the other hand, Missy recognizes from the beginning of the story that cutting is unhealthy and dangerous. She wants to break away from it and prove to herself and the world that she doesn\u2019t need her razor. Her whirlwind of emotions as she tries to fight the urge to cut make up some of the best scenes of the book. This passage is a wonderful example:<\/p>\n
Erica frowned. \u201cSo why do you cut?\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s trying,<\/em> Missy thought. Erica was trying to understand. Missy fumbled, searching for the right words. \u201cWhen I cut, I\u2019m the one controlling the pain. I know where it\u2019s coming from. I know that it\u2019s me who\u2019s doing it, me and no one else.\u201d God she felt stupid. She wasn\u2019t explaining it right. She sounded like an idiot. \u201cIt\u2019s better than the other pain. [\u2026] The one in my chest,\u201d Missy said softly, but gripping the pillow tight tight tight. \u201cThe one that crushes everything else. The one that makes it impossible to breathe,\u201d (Rage<\/em> p. 138-9).<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThere are a few other potential trigger warnings that should be addressed: bullying and suicide. To be clear, no one kills themselves, but Missy 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.<\/p>\n
Missy\u2019s classmate repeatedly show themselves to be creatively cruel and heartless. It\u2019s easy to understand why Missy would feel violent urges against them. At the same time, the writing is clever enough to make a reader still cheer when Missy doesn\u2019t<\/em> give to those urges.<\/p>\nI won\u2019t give away the book\u2019s ending, but it is as satisfying as the rest of it. The ending left me with a sense of peace, knowing that Missy\u2019s life still wasn\u2019t perfect, but that she was going to be okay. Better than that, she was going to be happy, despite the strange new powers in her life. I also want to note that Rage <\/em>is one of the few stories I\u2019ve read where a character with depression actually gets professional help that is helpful<\/em> by the end (though only in the epilogue).<\/p>\nOverall, I highly recommend Rage<\/em> for anyone with depression, who wants to learn about depression, or anyone who just enjoys a good story. It\u2019s moving, it\u2019s clever, and despite its fantasy elements it\u2019s incredibly realistic. Give it a shot and maybe, like me, you\u2019ll immediately want to get the rest of the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I highly recommend Rage<\/em> for anyone with depression, who wants to learn about depression, or anyone who just enjoys a good story. It\u2019s moving, it\u2019s clever, and despite its fantasy elements it\u2019s incredibly realistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[62,522],"tags":[146,163,164],"genre":[9],"age_category":[8],"disability":[28,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6879,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817\/revisions\/6879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=1817"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=1817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a><\/center><\/div>Rage<\/em> is about Melissa Miller, or Missy as she\u2019s usually called. Missy suffers from depression and anxiety. These feelings often overwhelm her to the point where she has to constantly focus on staying in control of her emotions, only showing a stoic face to the outer world. The only relief she gets is when she uses a razor to cut herself.<\/p>\n