Melissa Woodland

In Jennifer Niven’s young adult book, All the Bright Places, you can expect to find two teenagers who are struggling with grief, depression, suicide, and finding their way in life.  All the Bright Places beautifully tells about two people who find unexpected salvation in each other while working on a school project.  Niven is able to portray an honest picture of the face of mental illness as well as the depth of grief.

Theodore Finch is abused and abandoned by his father and ignored by his incapable mother, which leaves Finch with both physical and emotional battle wounds. Finch is eccentric, intelligent, and seemingly fearless.  He is obsessed with suicide and the statistics of each form. How long it takes to die, the benefits of suicide, and famous people who took their life in that manner are all ways that Finch is obsessed with it. He often quotes the notes left behind by poets such as Virginia Wolfe’s, “You have been in every way all that anyone could be…If anybody could have saved me it would have been you”  (Niven 106).

Finch drifts between two phases that he refers to as “asleep” and “awake.” When he is asleep, he is trapped in his head and unable to participate in the normal activities of life. When he is awake, he is fighting to stay that way. When his counselor suggests he may be bipolar, Finch rejects this because he dislikes labels. He believes that people should not be seen as “bi-polar,” “OCD,” or “bulimic,” but instead he wants to be seen as just simply a human. The signs of Finch’s mental illness (erratic moods, long disappearances, and instability) are obvious. However, his family and friends excuse them away as “just something he does.”

Violet Markey, who was once one of the popular and involved students, is now broken by the death of her sister in an auto accident, which she was able to survive. She has isolated herself and will no longer drive or ride in a car.  Violet has pushed everything she once loved out of her life, including writing. Instead of living, she feels it is safer to merely exist. Even nine months after the accident, Violet opts out of assignments and activities by pleading “extenuating circumstances.”

Finch meets Violet on the ledge of the high school bell tower while he is contemplating the pros and cons of suicide by falling.  People pointing from the ground cause him to notice her standing there, terrified and shaking.  Finch acts as if nothing is wrong and creates random conversation, and he eventually talks her back over the ledge to safety.  Because Finch is already considered a freak at school, he readily says that it was Violet who talked him off the ledge.

An assignment to visit two or three wonders in their state of Indiana for US History is what pairs Finch and Violet together again.  They choose to visit the oddest and most unique places they can find.  Violet is struck by how Finch views the world around him.  He is able to see beauty in the world around him in a way that Violet has lost.  At each location they visit, they leave a few small items behind.  Through these wanderings, Finch and Violet bond.  Finch is enamored with Violet, and she becomes his reason to fight to stay “awake.”  She is all the bright places to him—his “Ultraviolet ReMarkey-able.”

Finch lovingly draws Violet out of her coma of grief but pushes her hard when necessary.  The irony is that Violet learns to live from a boy who is fascinated with death.  It does not take long for Violet to see that Finch is not a freak at all.  The broken pair end up essentially saving each other; he readily says that it was Violet who talked him off the ledge.

All the Bright Places is woven together with quotes from literature and poetry that Finch and Violet use to communicate. For example, they use this passage from The Waves by Virginia Woolf:

This is the most exciting moment I have ever known.  I flutter.  I ripple.  I stream like a plant in the river, flowing this way, flowing that way, but rooted, so that he may come to me.  ‘Come,’ I say, ‘come.’ (Niven 76)

This reference to water, and its movement from the literature and into the many locations that Finch and Violet visit, seem to tie together a reoccurring theme of water representing freedom throughout the entire novel.

The story is told in the alternating, but never overlapping, viewpoint of Violet and Finch, keeping the reader interested and invested in the storyline.  The characters could have been plucked out of any American high school.  They are easily relatable to both the younger and the older reader, the bully who hates without reason, the judgmental beauty on the cheer squad who bad mouths anyone not like her, the outcast who dies her hair purple, pink and black, the freak who is incredibly intelligent but misunderstood, the good-looking jock who makes the boys jealous and the girls desirous, and the quiet one who seems happiest alone.

Niven beautifully and insightfully draws the reader into the world of the misunderstood and mentally ill, causing the reader to feel their highs and lows and root for them to overcome in the end. An example of this comes from Finch after the first wandering to Hoosier Hill, which is the high point of Indiana:

I learned that there is good in this world, if you look hard enough for it.  I learned that not everyone is disappointing, including me, and that a 1,257-foot bump in the ground can feel higher than a bell tower if you’re standing next to the right person. (Niven 104)

This trip is the beginning of Violet’s steps out of her grief as well:

Suddenly a new message appears.  I feel like I just walked through the back of the wardrobe and into Narnia.

I immediately research Narnia quotes.  The one that stands out is: “I have come home at last!  This is my real country!  I belong here.  This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew until now….Come further up, come further in!”

But instead of copying it down and sending it, I get up and mark the day off on the calendar….I think about Hoosier Hill, Finch’s blue-blue eyes, and the way he made me feel.  Like everything else that doesn’t last, today is gone now, but it was a good day.  The best I’ve had in months. (Niven 103)

Such descriptive passages as these left me feeling breathless and deeply moved.

Niven has previously authored four adult novels: American Blonde, Becoming Clementine, Velva Jean Learns to Fly, and Velva Jean Learns to Drive.  She has also written three nonfiction books titled: The Ice Master, Ada Blackjack, and The Aqua Net Diaries (a memoir of her high school years). In the “Author’s Note,” Niven speaks of her experience with someone who suffered with mental illness and the labels and stigmas that go along with it.

All the Bright Places is Niven’s seventh novel and her first young adult book, which director Miguel Arteta plans to turn into a feature film. In all, it is a compelling story of two people who triumph over the darkness in their lives. The novel is beautifully written, and I would recommend this story to anyone.