Death, abuse, pain, scares, love, and passion; Rage: A Love Story is a tough read for the mind, if you’ve ever been in a abusive situation every word Julie Anne Peters writes on each page stays with you, even if you haven’t she makes it so real and so vivid that you can almost feel the bruises, the blood, even her broken bones that Reeve, her girlfriend, inflicts on her. I would always recommend this book to anyone in any type of situation, in a weird twisted way it is very sweet and loving, this book is more toward sympathetic and emotional people than goofy and silly. Johanna watches Reeve all through high school they are now seniors and ready to leave high school, to Johanna Reeve is perfect can do no wrong and has the most amazing style, attitude, and love. But soon she starts to see that it’s not all that’s on the inside. Reeve lives in a meth and crack infested house where she and her twin brother sleep in closets to hind from her mother’s abusive brother in law. Having been abused all her life Reeve doesn’t know any different so when something stunning or major happens or even something that is minor but she takes it out of proportion she pushes back and ten times harder, having blackened Johanna’s eye, broke Johanna’s rib and nose, buster her lip, Johanna doesn’t go anywhere, she says its fine and she’s okay. The people and loved ones around her notice what is going on and Johanna loses all of them for Reeve. The cycle of domestic violence, the effects on abused children, gender issues, the loss of parents, hospice life, mental health counseling, cutting, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, are all thrown together in these two eighteen year olds life. It is a never ending cycle until Johanna’s older sister sends Reeve to a women’s health center and Johanna and her, Tessa her sister, move to Minnesota.
As said in the title “Rage” the entire book reflects how the trauma of a life time full of anger and rage can ruin and haunt not only the direct victim but everyone else around them. Julie Anne Peters show how true the saying “love is blind” Johanna is in a fantasy of this delusion that she can truly help Reeve and Reeve loves her in every way. But how can a person love if they’ve never had love in anyway? The novel is placed during the last few months of senior year, this is very important because how Reeve and Johanna meet is by Johanna having to assist Robbie, Reeves twin brother, to graduate. If Johanna wasn’t to assist Robbie Johanna would have had to live with only a thought of being with Reeve and never would have had to go through all she did.
She writes this book in a way I haven’t seen before. She uses Joyland -a euphoric place within Johanna’s head that she sees her perfect relationship with Reeve. She has extreme sex fantasies and emotional fabrications of who Reeve really is. To me Joyland gave the book that extra bit it needed, with all the pain and violence an occasional sight of pure love and compassion is desired, and that is what is given. If Joyland wasn’t inserted I think the book would be too detriment and intense to read straight through with no breaks for a lot of people.
Throughout the book each character went through a lot to get to who they were in the end. Especially Reeve, coming from a house full of hostility and pain, growing up with a twin brother with autism who tried to protect her at all costs who ended up being murdered along with their mother by their uncle who abused them since their father left; after she watched them get brutally stabbed and sliced Reeve ran to Johanna. Tessa and Johanna took her in and gave her somewhere to stay but when Johanna woke up she was gone. Soon Johanna was informed by Tessa that she had gone to a woman shelter, when Johanna went to see her she was completely different, she followed directions, she wanted to love and be happy and be with Johanna but alike Reeve Johanna had changed as well. She had been going to counseling for a multitude of reasons from the realization of being in an abusive relationship, to coping with the loss of both her parents due to health reasons and almost her sister, only mentally. In the last few pages of the book you see Reeve and Johanna separate but happily I really didn’t see that coming at all, it was bitter sweet and tear jerking. They went through so much together, Johanna taught Reeve what affection was, and Reeve taught Johanna that she’s worth more and that love comes in many ways but the both learned that violence, drugs, alcohol and sex can never solve an issue only coat over it.
Johanna tells Reeve she can take her away from all that, if Reeve will just love her. Since Johanna does this she takes on whole new issues of Reeve, who consumes all her thoughts, resisting Johanna’s presence, and even hits her. But to Johanna it’s normal for those things to happen to people who love each other. Then she fights with Novak and her sister, and the rest of the things in her life that were important and necessary before Reeve become unimportant just so Johanna can be with Reeve, like losing her job even being kicked out of the hospice center when Reeve tries to do inappropriate things in one patient’s room with Johanna. Johanna allows herself to be tormented due to the ungodly delusion of perfect love in an imperfect society. Because Reeve has been around drugs, alcohol, violence, abuse, bullying, poverty, and much more it has caused her to be emotionally detached from her world around her except with Robbie, her twin brother, this lifelong effect she has gone through one hundred percent contributes to the entire story of physical and emotional abuse toward Johanna.
All through the book Johanna has an animosity toward Tessa her older sister. As she thinks “Heaven forbid Tessa should go to bed one minute after nine. She couldn’t say, Come talk to me. Anytime.” This is constantly repeated throughout the story line. Johanna has had a grudge on her for leaving Johanna to take care of their mother when she was dying. And neither coming home to help nor consoling in Johanna when she lost either of her babies, along with Johanna coming out to Tessa and for Tessa not to seemingly care. Johanna and Tessa’s rocky relationship had a lot to do with the entire book, Johanna always felt like she was alone and no one cared so she went to Reeve more and thought she could fix Reeve even though Johanna herself wasn’t healthy either. When Johanna separates from Reeve she begins to go to a counselor, Peters writes the therapist’s character like how you make fun of them “What does love mean to you, Johanna?” she says over and over in different forms. I feel like peters is use to going to counseling like that where it’s not really helpful but for some people they have to work it out inside of them. Using the simplistic short questions left it very dry and rigged, Johanna became irritated at all the questions that almost seemed like harassment. I think its written like this to purposefully make Johanna think way deep inside an detect that the love she thought she had for this girl wasn’t real. I really didn't like how she made her realize it but it was a easy way to finish out the book. "She eases open my bedroom door and slices through the darkness. Opaline edges outline the contours of her body. I can't see her face but i know its her." Joyland: Take 5, this was one of my favorite. How she starts it out and how innocent she makes Reeve out to be. Though it was very vague it let Johanna’s mind and the readers mind wonder to maybe who they would want to sneak into their room in the midst of the night. Its intriguing and mysterious and exactly what the reader needs to off set the tragedy.
Just like Melissa on Goodreads said Johanna allowed everything to happen, yes the majority of abuse situations and books about it the person allows it to happen but i don't think this was a fault of the book. " For most of the book, I found myself wishing that she would finally grow a backbone and tell everyone off." states Melissa, Johanna was a push over through the whole book to everyone not just Reeve but also Novak, her best friend, and her sister, Tessa. So to me Johanna needed a back bone to everyone not just in her love life. It made it more realistic in my eyes for her not to fight back and always say everything is okay and shes fine despite the physical pain she went through. There are very few novels about LGBT groups and couples, not to mention domestic violence happening as well. In her second paragraph about Reeve when she states "She hates what she does to Johanna and yet, she doesn’t know how to control herself." I completely agree, it takes everything in Reeve not to break down and cry every time she leaves home much less when she breaks the one person other than her brother who loves and cares deeply about her. Melissa backs what I said earlier in my opening paragraph "It would be difficult for anyone to read even if they haven’t been in any sort of an abusive relationship." its incredible how Peters makes you want to read no matter if you can barely see through the tears and the vivid images that she paints in your head. Having experienced even a slight violence in any sense could have taken you to a different realm in the book. If you allowed it to go deep then it would take you all the way to heart if you didn't it only got nerve deep but it still ran through your body like nothing else has before.
Rage is a story about two lovers who go through quite a bit with in their lives separate much less together. When they come together everything just escalates into hell. The book is a tough read due to the abuse and substantial emotional and physical trauma. It also shows that no matter whom you are it can always get into situations that you don’t realize and refuse to accept. It showed to me that love is truly blind but if someone tries to give you some glasses to see out of you need to feel for them and try them on slowly but surely you’ll notice and more and more it becomes an active thing to stay around more than leaving and letting go.
As said in the title “Rage” the entire book reflects how the trauma of a life time full of anger and rage can ruin and haunt not only the direct victim but everyone else around them. Julie Anne Peters show how true the saying “love is blind” Johanna is in a fantasy of this delusion that she can truly help Reeve and Reeve loves her in every way. But how can a person love if they’ve never had love in anyway? The novel is placed during the last few months of senior year, this is very important because how Reeve and Johanna meet is by Johanna having to assist Robbie, Reeves twin brother, to graduate. If Johanna wasn’t to assist Robbie Johanna would have had to live with only a thought of being with Reeve and never would have had to go through all she did.
She writes this book in a way I haven’t seen before. She uses Joyland -a euphoric place within Johanna’s head that she sees her perfect relationship with Reeve. She has extreme sex fantasies and emotional fabrications of who Reeve really is. To me Joyland gave the book that extra bit it needed, with all the pain and violence an occasional sight of pure love and compassion is desired, and that is what is given. If Joyland wasn’t inserted I think the book would be too detriment and intense to read straight through with no breaks for a lot of people.
Throughout the book each character went through a lot to get to who they were in the end. Especially Reeve, coming from a house full of hostility and pain, growing up with a twin brother with autism who tried to protect her at all costs who ended up being murdered along with their mother by their uncle who abused them since their father left; after she watched them get brutally stabbed and sliced Reeve ran to Johanna. Tessa and Johanna took her in and gave her somewhere to stay but when Johanna woke up she was gone. Soon Johanna was informed by Tessa that she had gone to a woman shelter, when Johanna went to see her she was completely different, she followed directions, she wanted to love and be happy and be with Johanna but alike Reeve Johanna had changed as well. She had been going to counseling for a multitude of reasons from the realization of being in an abusive relationship, to coping with the loss of both her parents due to health reasons and almost her sister, only mentally. In the last few pages of the book you see Reeve and Johanna separate but happily I really didn’t see that coming at all, it was bitter sweet and tear jerking. They went through so much together, Johanna taught Reeve what affection was, and Reeve taught Johanna that she’s worth more and that love comes in many ways but the both learned that violence, drugs, alcohol and sex can never solve an issue only coat over it.
Johanna tells Reeve she can take her away from all that, if Reeve will just love her. Since Johanna does this she takes on whole new issues of Reeve, who consumes all her thoughts, resisting Johanna’s presence, and even hits her. But to Johanna it’s normal for those things to happen to people who love each other. Then she fights with Novak and her sister, and the rest of the things in her life that were important and necessary before Reeve become unimportant just so Johanna can be with Reeve, like losing her job even being kicked out of the hospice center when Reeve tries to do inappropriate things in one patient’s room with Johanna. Johanna allows herself to be tormented due to the ungodly delusion of perfect love in an imperfect society. Because Reeve has been around drugs, alcohol, violence, abuse, bullying, poverty, and much more it has caused her to be emotionally detached from her world around her except with Robbie, her twin brother, this lifelong effect she has gone through one hundred percent contributes to the entire story of physical and emotional abuse toward Johanna.
All through the book Johanna has an animosity toward Tessa her older sister. As she thinks “Heaven forbid Tessa should go to bed one minute after nine. She couldn’t say, Come talk to me. Anytime.” This is constantly repeated throughout the story line. Johanna has had a grudge on her for leaving Johanna to take care of their mother when she was dying. And neither coming home to help nor consoling in Johanna when she lost either of her babies, along with Johanna coming out to Tessa and for Tessa not to seemingly care. Johanna and Tessa’s rocky relationship had a lot to do with the entire book, Johanna always felt like she was alone and no one cared so she went to Reeve more and thought she could fix Reeve even though Johanna herself wasn’t healthy either. When Johanna separates from Reeve she begins to go to a counselor, Peters writes the therapist’s character like how you make fun of them “What does love mean to you, Johanna?” she says over and over in different forms. I feel like peters is use to going to counseling like that where it’s not really helpful but for some people they have to work it out inside of them. Using the simplistic short questions left it very dry and rigged, Johanna became irritated at all the questions that almost seemed like harassment. I think its written like this to purposefully make Johanna think way deep inside an detect that the love she thought she had for this girl wasn’t real. I really didn't like how she made her realize it but it was a easy way to finish out the book. "She eases open my bedroom door and slices through the darkness. Opaline edges outline the contours of her body. I can't see her face but i know its her." Joyland: Take 5, this was one of my favorite. How she starts it out and how innocent she makes Reeve out to be. Though it was very vague it let Johanna’s mind and the readers mind wonder to maybe who they would want to sneak into their room in the midst of the night. Its intriguing and mysterious and exactly what the reader needs to off set the tragedy.
Just like Melissa on Goodreads said Johanna allowed everything to happen, yes the majority of abuse situations and books about it the person allows it to happen but i don't think this was a fault of the book. " For most of the book, I found myself wishing that she would finally grow a backbone and tell everyone off." states Melissa, Johanna was a push over through the whole book to everyone not just Reeve but also Novak, her best friend, and her sister, Tessa. So to me Johanna needed a back bone to everyone not just in her love life. It made it more realistic in my eyes for her not to fight back and always say everything is okay and shes fine despite the physical pain she went through. There are very few novels about LGBT groups and couples, not to mention domestic violence happening as well. In her second paragraph about Reeve when she states "She hates what she does to Johanna and yet, she doesn’t know how to control herself." I completely agree, it takes everything in Reeve not to break down and cry every time she leaves home much less when she breaks the one person other than her brother who loves and cares deeply about her. Melissa backs what I said earlier in my opening paragraph "It would be difficult for anyone to read even if they haven’t been in any sort of an abusive relationship." its incredible how Peters makes you want to read no matter if you can barely see through the tears and the vivid images that she paints in your head. Having experienced even a slight violence in any sense could have taken you to a different realm in the book. If you allowed it to go deep then it would take you all the way to heart if you didn't it only got nerve deep but it still ran through your body like nothing else has before.
Rage is a story about two lovers who go through quite a bit with in their lives separate much less together. When they come together everything just escalates into hell. The book is a tough read due to the abuse and substantial emotional and physical trauma. It also shows that no matter whom you are it can always get into situations that you don’t realize and refuse to accept. It showed to me that love is truly blind but if someone tries to give you some glasses to see out of you need to feel for them and try them on slowly but surely you’ll notice and more and more it becomes an active thing to stay around more than leaving and letting go.
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