All My Rage follows two Pakistani American teens in a windblown California desert town and the legacy that began across an ocean. Their lives knot together around grief, love, and the scars families pass down, tracing the painful cost—and redemptive possibility—of Grief and Loss, Abuse and Intergenerational Trauma, and the volatile push-pull of Forgiveness and Rage.
Main Characters
Salahudin Malik
Salahudin Malik is a sensitive, fiercely loyal senior shouldering an impossible load: a failing family motel, an alcoholic father, a dying mother, and a shattered friendship with the girl he loves. He copes by writing, but desperation drives him into dealing, a choice that entangles him with dangerous people and deepens his isolation. As he confronts family secrets and the damage of silence, Sal begins to see that honoring his mother means protecting people, not places. His relationships with Noor, Misbah, and Toufiq define his growth—from guilt-ridden fixer to someone willing to tell the truth, accept help, and take responsibility.
Noor Riaz
Noor Riaz is brilliant, guarded, and burning with quiet ambition, an orphan trapped under her uncle’s iron control while secretly plotting a way to college. Years of loss and cruelty have taught her to rely only on herself, yet Misbah’s tenderness and Sal’s enduring care remind her of a different kind of love. When grief, arrest, and public humiliation collide, Noor chooses to fight back, finding allies and her own voice in the process. Her arc moves from survival to self-determination, learning to accept care without surrendering the future she’s claimed.
Misbah Malik
Misbah Malik is the family’s moral center, a hopeful storyteller whose “Then” chapters trace a path from Lahore to the Mojave, stitching past to present. She endures illness and her husband’s addiction with steadfast faith, while her love shelters both Sal and Noor. The secrets she carries—born of trauma and sacrifice—cast long shadows, yet her memory becomes the compass guiding the children through their worst choices. Misbah’s legacy illuminates the immigrant grind, the cost of silence, and the healing power of compassion.
Supporting Characters
Toufiq Malik
Toufiq Malik is Sal’s father, a gifted, devastated man numbed by addiction after years of unspoken grief. His absence forces Sal into a parental role, fracturing their bond and the motel Misbah hoped would root them. His slow, unglamorous steps toward sobriety become essential to repairing the family and show how confronting pain—rather than drowning it—can reopen the possibility of love.
Shaukat Riaz
Shaukat Riaz (Chachu) is Noor’s uncle and primary antagonist, a man whose losses have curdled into control, resentment, and abuse. He cloaks his cruelty in the language of duty, insisting Noor owes him her future even as he sabotages it. His tyranny exposes how trauma, when unhealed, can metastasize into domination that demands to be broken.
Ashlee McCann
Ashlee McCann is Sal’s ex and a young mother battling an opioid addiction, initially a distraction from his spiraling grief. Her overdose becomes a brutal reckoning that forces Sal to face the lethal stakes of his choices. Flawed yet perceptive, she also shows courage when she publicly backs Noor against Jamie’s racism.
Jamie Jensen
Jamie Jensen is a high-achieving classmate whose jealousy and casual racism make her a persistent antagonist to Noor. Her harassment exposes the town’s prejudice and the pressures of privilege weaponized against outsiders. Ultimately, Jamie’s public meltdown costs her status and punctures the myth of merit untouched by bias.
Minor Characters
- Art Britman: The school’s smiling conduit to the drug trade who lures Sal into dealing, masking predation with charm and convenience.
- Brooke: Shaukat’s timid wife, a bystander to Noor’s abuse who freezes until the crisis forces a choice.
- Imam Shafiq and Khadija: A compassionate couple from the mosque who become anchors for both teens; Khadija, a lawyer, champions Noor’s case while the Imam counsels Sal and Toufiq toward accountability.
- Dr. Ellis: Sal’s pediatrician, keeper of a devastating truth from his childhood, who pushes him to name the trauma shaping his rage.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
At the story’s core is the triangle of Sal, Noor, and Misbah: Misbah’s open-hearted care creates a found-family space where two isolated kids learn to belong. After her death, that love turns into a lifeline—the reason Sal claws toward accountability and Noor refuses to let an abuser define her. Their bond evolves from childhood refuge to hard-won partnership, where honesty replaces secrecy and love becomes an act of mutual protection.
The Maliks are a family shattered by silence. Misbah absorbs pain to shield her son; Toufiq drinks to forget; Sal hustles to fix what he cannot name. Only when the truth surfaces—about the past, about addiction, about the motel—do father and son begin to meet each other as wounded people capable of repair rather than rivals in suffering.
Noor’s household is the inverse: Shaukat’s authority is absolute, weaponizing gratitude and culture to control her. Her resistance grows in counterpoint to his escalation, and when community support and legal advocacy step in, the power dynamic finally breaks. That rupture doesn’t erase damage, but it frees Noor to choose her own future.
Around them, allies and antagonists sharpen the stakes. Ashlee and Art embody the peril of Sal’s choices—the former a human cost, the latter the path of least resistance that nearly ruins him. Jamie’s bigotry tests Noor publicly, while Khadija and Imam Shafiq model a different kind of strength: advocacy, compassion, and the insistence that telling the truth—about harm, addiction, and love—is the first step toward healing.