Theodore Finch and Violet Markey are two teenagers who badly want to escape from their small Indiana town of Bartlett. Violet is a popular girl who is secretly dealing with survivor's guilt, and Finch is a boy obsessed with death, labeled a freak by his peers. Fate brings the two together when both climbed the bell tower at school at the same time, planning to jump off the ledge. Finch was surprised to see Violet up there because she is one of the most popular girls in the school. However, Violet has been dealing with the death of her sister, Eleanor, who died 9 months previously in a car accident after Violet suggested the route home. Having not been in a car since the accident, Violet feels responsible and thinks she should have died instead of Eleanor. Violet quit the student council, then cheerleading. On the ledge, Finch talks Violet down, and Violet returns the favor, but everyone assumes it's Violet who saved Finch.
As for Finch, he suffers from depression and experiences near-constant thoughts of suicide during his so-called "Awake" periods. Finch's family does not understand his depression, making him feel isolated. Morbidly, he writes out fun facts about other people's suicides on his computer, as well as methods of suicide and the best way to die. Finch initiates a partnership between himself and Violet for a school project in which they will explore their home state of Indiana together. Later, at home, Finch thinks about Violet, looking her up on Facebook, reading about her sister's accident (which he had forgotten), and chatting online with her.
For their project, Finch and Violet travel around Indiana to see important or unusual sites. They see homemade roller coasters, the highest hill in Indiana (Hoosier Hill), and more. The important thing doesn't seem to be the sites themselves, but what the wandering begins to mean for both of them—especially Violet. The two begin a romantic relationship and fall in love. Eventually, Finch pushes Violet to get in the car and begin writing again, for the first time after her sister's accident nine months prior. He helps her begin to talk about her sister's death, which her parents have not managed to do. As a result, Violet begins to heal.
However, Finch's mental health begins to deteriorate. He suffers from an undiagnosed bipolar disorder and therefore, deals with very high highs and very low lows. His behavior demonstrates the characteristic manic periods of impulsive excitability as well as the lethargic, pointless mindset during the depressive periods. He is also physically abused by his father and bullied at school. Additionally, Finch refuses to be diagnosed because the labels make him feel trapped. The one shining spot in his life is his blossoming relationship with Violet.
The teenagers wander around Indiana together some more; however, on one occasion they accidentally stay out until the next morning, angering Violet's parents who forbid their daughter from seeing Finch again.
This begins a downward spiral for Finch, who ends up getting expelled from school after a fight with Violet's ex-boyfriend. Although he still sees Violet on occasion, Finch is easily able to hide his worsening depression from her. Violet doesn't realize the seriousness of the situation and wonders if Finch is losing interest in her.
One particularly bad night, Finch decides to end his life. He takes a handful of sleeping pills, but almost immediately regrets it. He goes to the emergency room and gets his stomach pumped. After that, he tries to get help through a suicide support group in a nearby town. There, he runs into Amanda, a popular student he knows from school. She is concerned about Finch's suicide attempt and tells Violet about it. Violet is obviously worried and tries to help though Finch explodes, angry at her concern, which leads to a big fight.
After their argument, Finch runs away from home, and Violet seems to be the only one looking for him. He sends her mysterious and cryptic texts while he visits the remaining locations for their unfinished school project, although Violet doesn't understand them until much later, thinking Finch was just being rudely cryptic.
A month after he has disappeared, Finch sends an email to every single person he knows, saying goodbye. Violet, in a panic, figures out that he has drowned himself at the Blue Hole, one of their wandering sites for the school project. She goes there and discovers she is right, and she becomes distraught. Later, she manages to decode the texts Finch had sent her, and at the last location they were supposed to visit together, Finch wrote a song for her. This helps the healing process and convinces Violet that Finch's death was not her fault. The book closes with Violet going swimming by herself in the Blue Hole, where she went swimming with Finch, bringing her a sense of peace.
Writing style
All the Bright Places is written in a subjective style from the point of view of the two main characters, Finch and Violet. The novel is composed of short sections narrated by Finch and Violet, that generally alternate between the two characters. This writing style allows readers to understand the changes in Violet as she heals from her sister's death and Finch as he progressively becomes more mentally ill throughout the novel.
Reception
The New York Times put All the Bright Places in the company of Rainbow Rowell'sEleanor & Park and John Green'sThe Fault in Our Stars in that "Violet and Finch are the archetypal offering in contemporary young adult fiction: a pair of damaged, heart-tugging teenagers who are at once outcasts and isolated, trapped by the dissonant alchemy of their combined fates."[4] The New York Daily News claims "All the Bright Places draws you in and makes you cry with the compelling story of two teens, Violet and Finch.[5] The story of Violet and Finch's quest to find 'All the Bright Places' is one that anyone can relate to". Entertainment Weekly and The Guardian both gave ultimately favorable reviews for the work,[6] with The Guardian writing "Niven’s first foray into Young Adult fiction lacks narrative tension but has plenty of emotional heft".[1]
All the Bright Places won the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Young Adult fiction and the #1 Kids' Indie Next Book for Winter '14-'15.[7] The novel has also been awarded for Children's Choice Book Awards Teen Book of the Year and 2016 Mare di Libri Book Prize for Best YA Book. It has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal and longlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Book. It won the 2017 Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award.[8]
Related Research Articles
Tamora Pierce is an American writer of fantasy fiction for teenagers, known best for stories featuring young heroines. She made a name for herself with her first book series, The Song of the Lioness (1983–1988), which followed the main character Alanna through the trials and triumphs of training as a knight.
Works of fiction dealing with mental illness include:
Meggin Patricia Cabot is an American novelist. She has written and published over 50 novels of young adult and adult fiction and is best known for her young adult series The Princess Diaries, which was later adapted by Walt Disney Pictures into two feature films. Cabot has been the recipient of numerous book awards, including the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age, the American Library Association Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, the Tennessee Volunteer State TASL Book Award, the Book Sense Pick, the Evergreen Young Adult Book Award, the IRA/CBC Young Adult Choice, and many others. She has also had number-one New York Times bestsellers, and more than 25 million copies of her books are in print across the world.
Mary Elle Fanning is an American actress. She made her film debut as a child as the younger version of her sister Dakota Fanning's character in the drama film I Am Sam and in the miniseries Taken (2002). She appeared in several other films as a child actress, including Daddy Day Care (2003), Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Phoebe in Wonderland, and the miniseries The Lost Room (2006). She then had leading roles in Sofia Coppola's drama Somewhere (2010) and J. J. Abrams' science fiction film Super 8 (2011).
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018 to 2019. Her novel Another Brooklyn was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. She won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light.
James Smith Dashner is an American writer known for speculative fiction. Many of his books are primarily aimed at children or young adults. He is best known for The Maze Runner series and the young adult fantasy series The 13th Reality. His 2008 novel The Journal of Curious Letters, first in the series, was one of the annual Borders Original Voices picks.
Chinese Handcuffs is a 1989 young adult novel by young adult writer Chris Crutcher. The story alternates between the two main characters, Dillon and Jennifer, both high school athletes dealing with personal issues. The majority of Dillon’s story is told via a journal he keeps, writing about the death of his older brother.
Gayle Forman is an American young adult fiction author, best known for her novel If I Stay, which topped the New York Times best sellers list of Young Adult Fiction and was made into a film of the same name.
Jennifer Echols is an American writer of romantic fiction for young adults. A former newspaper editor, college teacher, and freelance copyeditor, Echols now writes full-time. She lives in Alabama with her husband and son.
A Visit from the Goon Squad is a 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan. The book is a set of thirteen interrelated stories with a large set of characters all connected to Bennie Salazar, a record company executive, and his assistant, Sasha. The book centers on the mostly self-destructive characters of different ages who, as they grow older, are sent in unforeseen, and sometimes unusual, directions by life. The stories shift back and forth in time from the 1970s to the present and into the near future. Many of the stories take place in and around New York City, although other settings include San Francisco, Italy, and Kenya.
Veronica Anne Roth is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her bestselling Divergent trilogy which has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.
Rainbow Rowell is an American author known for young adult and adult contemporary novels. Her young adult novels Eleanor & Park (2012), Fangirl (2013) and Carry On (2015) have been subjects of critical acclaim.
This Is Not a Test is a novel written by Canadian author Courtney Summers. It was first published on June 19, 2012 by St. Martin's Press. The novel takes place in a fictional Canadian town called Cortege, during the beginning of a zombie apocalypse. This Is Not a Test follows Sloane Price, a suicidal and abused teen girl as she faces the mental torments of her abusive father and being abandoned by her elder sister all the while reluctantly surviving alongside five other damaged teenagers. In 2013, it made the Inky Awards Shortlist and was a nominee for Silver Inky. In 2014, it was an Ontario Library Association Forest of Reading White Pine Honour Book.
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a 2015 young adult novel and the debut book by American author Becky Albertalli. The coming-of-age story focuses on its titular protagonist Simon Spier, a closeted, gay, high school-aged boy who is forced to come out after a blackmailer discovers Simon's e-mails written to another closeted classmate with whom he has fallen in love.
All the Bright Places is a 2020 American teen romantic drama film, directed by Brett Haley, from a screenplay by Jennifer Niven and Liz Hannah, adapted from the novel of the same name by Niven. It stars Elle Fanning, Justice Smith, Alexandra Shipp, Kelli O'Hara, Lamar Johnson, Virginia Gardner, Felix Mallard, Sofia Hasmik, Keegan-Michael Key, and Luke Wilson.
Jennifer Niven is a New York Times and international best selling American author who is best known for the 2015 young adult book, All the Bright Places.
You Should See Me in a Crown is a debut young adult novel by Leah Johnson, published by Scholastic in June 2020. The book was given a Stonewall Book honor, and TIME magazine named it one of the best 100 young adult books of all time.
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is a young adult mystery debut novel by Holly Jackson. The novel is the first in a series of three novels and one novella: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (2019); Good Girl, Bad Blood (2020); As Good As Dead (2021); and Kill Joy (2022). All books were published by Electric Monkey in the UK and by Delacorte Press in the USA.
Jennifer Lynn Barnes is an American writer of young adult novels.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
