Book Review - All The Bright Places
By Unknown 8:42:00 AM all the bright places, books, fiction, jennifer niven, john green, rainbow rowell, reading is cool, review, theodore finch, violet markey, young adultA ll the Bright Places is a novel written by Jennifer Niven. It tells the story of Theodore Finch and Violet Markey who fall in love i...
All the Bright Places is a novel written by Jennifer Niven. It tells the story of Theodore Finch and Violet Markey who fall in love in the most beautiful way two people ever could.
I can already see you, dear Reader, rolling your eyes hard. I know: "YA books suck! Why didn't you choose to review a more serious book?! I mean, you said you wanted to be a writer and all..." The reason is simple and needs no further explanations: because I absolutely ADORED this book.
So, as I said before, this is the story of Finch and Violet, who fall in love with eachother. Nothing out of the ordinary so far, I mean, we've all read at least one of John Green's books (to which I'll get at some point of this blog), but this book is different. Of course it's filled with all the cheesy metaphors one could think of, but it feels...real. It's your typical fucked-up-boy-falls-in-love-with-normal-and-beautiful-girl kind of romance, but I could actually identify with the characters.
Theodore Finch is an outcast. He's a hidden introvert, burying himself deep in his art: guitar and writing. He suffers from bipolarity, depression and suicidal thoughts and because of this he spends weeks in bed, skipping school. In an "Awake" moment, as he calls it, he gets up in the bell tower of the high school and thinks of killing himself, when a girl climbs next to him, wanting to do the exact same thing. He talks her into getting off the ledge, and this is how it all begins.
Violet Markey is broken. Since a terrible incident happened to her, she cannot function properly anymore. Meeting Finch saved her. He opened her eyes in a way no one ever could.
The blurb does justice to this book. It really is "The story of a girl who learned to live from a boy who wants to die", but I wouldn't exactly compare it with The Fault in Our Stars. They have a few things in common here and there, such as a brilliant, cocky, charming male protagonist and an almost-ordinary female protagonist, a beautiful love story and a tragic ending (I'm not telling you more), but I dare say that Niven's novel tops John Green's. Even though both of them talked about hard topics (e.g. cancer in TFIOS and mental disorders in All the Bright Places), this one seemed closer to the audience. Of course, Green's book was a huge hit, but in a world where mental disorders don't exist because you cannot see them or they're considered "just a phase", this book pointed out the truth. The reader can see exactly what mental disorders do to someone. It is infuriating, how no one but you, the reader, sees how much Finch is suffering, yet you cannot help him. His parents are oblivious, his teachers too, his counselor has no idea how to approach him and he shuts within himself more and more as the story advances.
The love story is only half of what this book is. It is the sugar-coated part. Yet mental disorders are nothing that should be sugar-coated. I personally hate the idea of romanticised disorders, of a lover that could "kiss away" depression and anxiety or self-harm. These topics are not to be fooled around with. And teenage suicide rates are getting higher as the days go by.
Therefore, I recommend this book if you're a John Green, Jojo Moyes or Rainbow Rowell fan, but I also recommend it to everyone who wants to read something heart-breakingly true.
