All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“We are all alone, trapped in these bodies and our own minds, and whatever company we have in this life is only fleeting and superficial.”- All the Bright Places, Jennifer Niven

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.
 
Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.
 
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.
 

Cutesy. Pandering. Derivative. Shallow. Fake. 

These are all words I thought of at various points during this book.

But let's start from the beginning, shall we?

This book is quite famous due to all the controversy it stirred up. Controversy I know very little about except its existence because I strongly believe in withholding judgement until I've actually read the goddamn book. That means not reading reviews about how problematic it may be. So while the controversy surrounding it did in fact make me actually decide to read it, I did my best to try and see if I actually liked it or hated it before passing judgement.

Also, can I just say the summary did give me some hope? Because I would have fucking loved it if this book turned out to be anything like Harold and Maude. I love that movie more than I probably should. Finch was the one that gave me the most hope, because if he ended up being anything like Harold, who's the reason young Bud Cort is one of my biggest celebrity crushes, I would have adored him. 

And I didn't like it very much. But not because I found it especially problematic (though some parts made me side-eye). It's just that this is one of my least favorite kinds of contemporary. It's cutesy romance disguised as a hard hitting contemporary. 

I don't really know why I hate cutesy romance so much. I mean, Jesus, I like cutesy things- see my long-lasting love for Nintendo games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon or other girly things like kitties and stuffed animals. But for some reason, I despise these sugar-sweet romances in books. There are some exceptions to this- I adored Graffiti Moon, for instance, but that book had exquisite prose and gave me the same aching feeling in my chest that I get when I read a Zusak contemporary. This book, well, didn't have that. Instead, I felt like I was getting force fed this couple, with the author using her prose as a means of pointing out how perfect they were together (look, they're quoting Virginia Woolf to each other! look, they're wandering around Indiana together! don't you see how much they belong together!) instead of working on character growth to let them develop chemistry more naturally over the course of the novel. I know I've mentioned over and over again how much I hate when two characters hate each other and then fall in love, but I understand and even commend the reasons why those authors use that trope. They don't just want to throw the characters together. And I think that works in some situations, like in Unwind or in Graffiti Moon, and I wonder if perhaps Niven should have taken that path instead of this strange, instantaneous connection.

I didn't particularly like any of the characters. Violet seemed bland, the generically beautiful, smart, broken heroine who was, of course, an exceptionally talented writer. I've read some version of this character in every single cutesy contemporary I've had the displeasure of picking up. Finch had the horrible home life it seems all love interests have, with an asshole father and a cool older sister. No ground-breaking material, there.

Also, have any of you read The Fault in Our Stars? I have (still regretting that life choice). And clearly, Jennifer Niven has too. Seriously. Its influence on this book becomes more clear as the book goes on- it's not as obvious in the beginning. I mean, All the Bright Places did go down easier than The Fault in Our Stars did for me- while Finch did give me strong Gus vibes Violet was far blander than HazelGraceLancaster was. Violet was also so obviously a fictional character, thus I couldn't actually feel anything for her. Same with Finch.

Which brings me to my next point nicely. This book was so shallow I couldn't even dip my toe into it. For a book that proclaimed to be about the opposite of shallow things I felt like all the emotions of the characters were written by someone who had no idea how to write emotions. The best example of this shallowness is Violet's parents. You never would have guessed they lost a daughter. The grief her parents felt only showed up when it was convenient for the plot. I'm not saying Niven needed to have a child or a sister die and feel this type of grief firsthand or even be a parent in the first place to write about it (I'm not) but she should have done research, read books or blogs by grieving parents (I like An Inch of Gray, myself). Or, and what I think she should have done in the first place, she should have changed it from a sister dying to a best friend dying. And Finch's family dynamics were horribly done. His father only hit him when it was convenient for the plot, making both (the death of a child and domestic abuse) seem drama fuel, nothing more.

The fake aspects come primarily from me being unable to believe that Finch's counselor wouldn't tell his mother that he was going to kill himself by jumping off a bell tower. Any school in America at least would report that immediately, not only to the parents but also to 911 and other emergency services. That is a neon warning sign, and not something any school would have swept under the rug. And you can't argue confidentiality, because self-harm and suicidal thoughts/actions don't fall under the rules of confidentiality. But I suppose Niven was thinking that it would be a nice meet-cute idea and screw reality. 

With all that said, the mental illness aspects make it hard to critique it, because the author and supporters can just hide behind the fact that "it's a mental illness book" and I have to support it because it makes such a taboo topic less taboo. However, I can't give mental illness books prizes for just existing anymore. Simply because, it's no longer a taboo topic. People are more and more open these days about struggling with suicidal thoughts and mental illnesses. I can openly say now that I struggled with thoughts of killing myself in high school and no one's going to shun me anymore. Hell, it's barely stigmatized anymore. We've come a long way from the days of suicide obituaries saying natural causes. 

So no, this book gets no brownie points from me for being about bipolar disorder and that's what separates it from being just another cutesy contemporary. Because at the end of the day, it is just another cutesy contemporary. Despite her probably protesting to the contrary, she is no different from Jennifer E Smith, whose sugary This Is What Happy Looks Like made my Least Favorites of 2016 list. Except, Jennifer E Smith probably doesn't try to be any different from what she really is.

3.5 out of 10