Unfortunately, I couldn’t justify giving All the Bright Places a perfect five star review because the story didn’t necessarily feel authentic.

Violet: “Why do you want me to do this project with you anyway?”įinch: “Because our mountain is waiting.”Īll the Bright Places does offer a compelling look into how mental illness can manifest itself in different aspects of daily life and also tackles some very prevalent issues in society today, including bullying, suicide, and the stigma associated with mental illness.

What initially starts out as a class assignment to find two interesting landmarks in Indiana gradually turns into Violet and Finch’s scavenger hunt to discover as many unique, bizarre, and hidden destinations as possible. I particularly liked the “wander Indiana” subplot. As Niven’s first dabble in YA fiction (she more typically can be found writing adult fiction and nonfiction), All the Bright Places definitely succeeded on several different levels. I figured out very early on what was likely going to happen, but that didn’t stop me from feverishly flipping through the pages until my suspicions were actually confirmed. Which pretty much guarantees at least four out of five stars because books very rarely make me cry. Review: I’ll preface this entire review by saying that All the Bright Places actually made me cry. This is a heart-wrenching, unflinching story of love shared, life lived, and two teens who find one another while standing on the edge.” But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink. And it’s only with Finch that Violet forgets to count away the days and starts living them. Soon it’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself – a bold, funny, live-out-loud guy, who’s not such a freak after all. And when the unlikely pair teams up on a class project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, they go, as Finch says, where the road takes them: the grand, the small, the bizarre, the beautiful, the ugly, the surprising – just like life. When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school – six stories above the ground – it’s unclear who saves whom. Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her small Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s death. Every day he thinks of ways he might die, but every day he also searches for – and manages to find – something to keep him here, and alive, and awake. Let’s get off that ledge.”īook Jacket Synopsis: “Theodore Finch is fascinated by death. At the very least, by the time we leave, we know we will have seen it, this great state of ours. And if not, maybe they can mean something to us. Maybe no one else will ever visit them and appreciate them or take the time to think they’re important, but maybe even the smallest places mean something. “I think I’ve got a map in my car that wants to be used, and I think there are places we can go that need to be seen.

All the bright places pages