Me on Rage

Title: Rage
Author: Jackie Morse Kessler
Release Date: April 8, 2011
Publisher: Harcourt Graphia

Missy didn't mean to cut so deep. But the party was terrible, and someone she once cared for humiliated her in front of everyone. Who could blame her for wanting comfort? Sure, most people don't turn to a razor blade, but Missy was always... different.

Now, Missy has become War, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and she wields a new weapon, a giant sword that can cut down everything and anyone in her path. But it's with this weapon heavy in her hand that Missy learns something that could help conquer her own pain: control.

What I love about this series is that it's heart-breakingly honest. No sugar-coating, because why would you? These are real issues that reel teens face every real day. I want a teenager to pick up this book, read it, and go, "Wow, that was amazing. Maybe I should talk to someone/talk to a friend because I think he/she is cutting/because I'm a cutter. I need/my friend needs help."

Missy is ruined, her body a road map of scars, of pain and sorrow and hopelessness. I could see myself in her, the teenager who wanted to avoid school, avoid the pointing, avoid the name calling and public shunning. The anger in her is like a disease, slowly building, growing, until she unleashes it upon the world so they can feel how she feels. So they can rage like she can.

There's something about this book that cuts so deep with me, no pun intended. I considered committing suicide when I was in high school, on a rainy day in November, at a point in time where most of my friends had dumped me over something stupid and pointless. Those months were my lowest, when I didn't want to leave the house, when I didn't want to get out of bed. Sometimes I think I would've started cutting. I don't know if it was reading that saved me, I still don't know to this day if I've gotten past that depressed point in my life, but I know that in those dark points, in the shadows, there's still hope. There's still a reason to go on living.

There are a few days here and there when I feel lost and alone, when I imagine the rush of blood and the brief flash of pain before it all rushes away, but I pull back when I remind myself I don't want to fall into the darkness.

Gritty, dark, honest, and powerful, Rage reaches into the heart of the reader to squeeze tight. This book gives Missy to us to care for and to love, to watch her grow and learn, to face her pain and hopefully, find the love and support she craves. To find victory.