Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler

Missy didn’t mean to cut so deep. But after the party where she was humiliated in front of practically everyone in school, who could blame her for wanting some comfort? Sure, most people don’t find comfort in the touch of a razor blade, but Missy always was . . . different.

That’s why she was chosen to become one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War. Now Missy wields a new kind of blade—a big, brutal sword that can cut down anyone and anything in her path. But it’s with this weapon in her hand that Missy learns something that could help her triumph over her own pain: control.
A unique approach to the topic of self-mutilation, Rage is the story of a young woman who discovers her own power and refuses to be defeated by the world.

I have to admit while reading this book, I realized that I was paying a lot more attention to the parts about Missy's feelings. The way that the author has portrayed the "need" to cut was very profound and I could sympathize with Missy. I have never experienced cutting in my life or anybody I know personally, but we all have some form of relief that we take when stressed or overwhelmed. Of course books usually stress the faults of the characters to make it more dramatic and have an imapact on the reader. It's what makes a powerful story have an affect that you will remember.
Missy's need to release her feelings through cutting make her "feel better". And although Missy does not really show much rage as herself, her story in this series represents the idea of Rage and War very well. The books are very well written in description that you can feel what the characters are going through with them. And you get a glimpse outside of your own life and maybe remember that it's a big world out there with a lot of suffering in many other ways. That the Apocalypse in many ways can be fought internally as well as externally.
       So far with the book Hunger and now Rage (2 more to go) in the Horseman of the Apocalypse Quartet they are short, but very intense in subject matter.