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Book Review of Rage: A Love Story

Rage: A Love Story
GeniusJen avatar reviewed on + 5322 more book reviews


Reviewed by Sally Kruger aka "Readingjunky" for TeensReadToo.com

Don't let the hot pink cover and the label A Love Story deceive you. RAGE is Julie Anne Peters's most powerful book yet. The focus is on an abusive dating relationship and the toll it takes on victim and villain alike.

Two girls with their own personal dysfunctional family issues are drawn together by mutual feelings of love and lust.

Johanna has survived the death of both her parents and feels abandoned by her sister, whose choice was to remain at college when Johanna needed her most.

Reeve and her twin brother, Robbie, live with daily abuse from a drug addicted mother and her controlling boyfriend. She only knows one way to express her feelings, and Johanna becomes the recipient of a twisted kind of love.

Ever since Johanna laid eyes on Reeve, she has had fantasies about how things could be between them. It doesn't matter that Reeve practices a sort of tough love with everyone she meets. Reeve punching her brother and giving Johanna bruising kisses is just part of loving someone like her. Johanna knows Reeve suffers at home and is sure that loving her unconditionally is a way to protect her and fix whatever is wrong.

Despite warnings from her sister, her friend, and Reeve's old flames, Johanna continues the relationship even as she loses important pieces of her own life. As long as Reeve returns after each incident, Johanna believes that love will hold the answers.

Julie Anne Peters has created a relationship that will leave readers with mixed emotions. While trying to understand the power of love, they will be shaking their heads at the same time they are shaking their fists at the actions of characters on both sides of this tumultuous relationship.

RAGE provides an inside look at what might drive us to give up parts of ourselves for the sake of love.