All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

             



            All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven follows two broken teenagers, Finch and Violet, and their personal conflicts. Violet is grieving the loss of her sister and struggling to return to everyday life. Finch, on the other hand, lives with bipolar disorder and suicidal ideations, which he hides behind humor and impulsive behavior. The two grow close through a school project, and a relationship slowly forms between them as they bond over their shared hardships.

              My favorite part of the book is how openly it centers around mental health. Both characters struggle with serious emotional pain and share the feeling of being “different” from the people around them. Jennifer Niven says the story was inspired by personal loss in her own life, explaining why the book talks about grief and mental illness the way it does. Because of this, it is a heavy read, so it’s important to check with yourself that you are in a good head space before diving into heavy topics such as depression, trauma, and suicide.

               An interesting element of the book I didn’t understand until I finished the book was Finch describing himself as being “awake”. Finch has been living with untreated bipolar disorder, so when he talks about being awake, he means being fully conscious/emotionally present in a painful way, often coinciding with depressive episodes. Throughout the novel, each of Finch’s chapters is numbered with how many days he’s been awake (it only increases from start to finish).

              There’s also a movie rendition of the book, which I’m hoping to watch soon. Despite how good the book is, I’ve heard negative things about the movie, mainly because some characters don’t look book accurate, but I still think it’ll be interesting to see how the story translates to film. From what I’ve seen, the film seems similar to other romance adaptations with deep themes, such as The Fault in Our Stars, if that interests you at all.

              One thing the book does especially well at is characters development throughout the novel. Finch and Violet have many layers of struggles, dreams, fears, passions, and unique personalities. Both characters grow in different ways both together and separately, which shapes a large part of the story. 

              Another aspect I loved is their shared appreciation for literature. Throughout the book, they quote poets, novelists, and writers to express the intensity of their thoughts or emotions, sometimes having full conversations of back-and-forth quotes. This led me to discovering many awesome writers, such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Anne Brontë, Cesare Pavese, Robert Lowell, and others. One quote that holds a lot of meaning to them and appears multiple times in different contexts is from Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, 1931:

              “I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am arch, gay, languid, melancholy by turns. I am root, but I flow. All gold, flowing…” This quote fits the characters restless, searching, contradictive personalities and moods.

              One complaint I have is that I didn’t like how the story turned into a romance rather than staying the course it was on. The story would have been just as impactful if they stayed close friends, but this did not happen. I went in blind, without knowing a single thing about the plot, so the turn toward a love story threw me off a bit. It’s my fault that I didn’t bother to figure out what I was going to be reading before starting, so this is your warning :)

              Overall, I would recommend All the Bright Places to anyone looking for a heavier, thought-provoking, emotional read with very complex characters and upfront themes of mental health. If you are at all interested, I would recommend searching up a preview and reading the first chapter because the style Niven writes in might not appeal to everyone. If you do do this, keep in mind that both characters change a lot within the course of the story, so don't judge them too harshly :) I promise this book will stay with you long after you finish.

                

                - Ana

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