Just Finished Reading: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

All the Rage
by Courtney Summers
Published on April 14, 2015
by St Martin's Griffin

Source: eARC for review

Synopsis from Goodreads: The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything—friends, family, and her community. Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous. But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out, Romy must decide whether she wants to fight or carry the burden of knowing more girls could get hurt if she doesn’t speak up. Nobody believed her the first time—and they certainly won’t now — but the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear.　

My take: I'm a huge fan of author Courtney Summers. She writes raw, gripping YA books about girls: angry girls, flawed girls, girls filled with self-doubt, girls who have stepped outside of some imagined societal boundary and are paying the price. 

As the book opens, Romy seems like she has it all together. Her nails and lips are always perfectly painted. There's a cute guy at work who seems interested in her. But underneath that is a girl who is fragile and filled with self-loathing, a girl who is struggling to keep it together on the outside when she's falling apart.

But All the Rage wasn't the book I expected from the synopsis above. I thought it was going to be one of those stories in which a guy and a girl have completely different versions of what happened between them one night. Who's more credible? Who do you believe? This story actually takes place after all that said/she said, and deals more with what happens after a girl gets raped and goes public. What are the longer term ramifications? How does she feel about herself? How is she viewed by those around her? I found it interesting and unexpected that this book was less about the night in question and more about the longer-term aftermath of that night for the victim. 

All the characters in All the Rage -- from Romy's well-meaning mom to her former best friend to her possible new boyfriend -- were so realistic and well-drawn.  As in all Summers' books, the writing is both understated and filled with feeling. No, this book wasn't what I expected going in, but I really liked that it turned out to be something unexpected and very moving. I highly recommend this one!