All the Bright Places, a book written by Jennifer Niven and released in January of 2015, is a truly heartbreaking and emotional story told from the alternating perspectives of two highschool students, Finch and Violet, who met at the uneventful scene of being on the ledge of their school’s bell tower, both intending to jump. 

When I first read this book back in 2018, I wasn’t expecting to be so heavily impacted by it and to fall so in love with it. I don’t often like to reread books, but All the Bright Places is one of the few exceptions. I’ve recently finished reading it again, and it shattered me just as much this time as it did the very first time I read it. This book is so beautifully written and gives such an amazing representation of mental illness, including depression, bipolar disorder, and PTSD.

After helping one another off the ledge, Finch and Violet slowly grow closer. There is pushback from Violet at first, who’s been known to push people away after the death of her sister almost a year earlier. With an assignment for one of their classes pushing Violet out of her comfort zone and into a group project with Finch, the two realize how alive they make each other feel. Their stories grow and twist together in the most beautiful ways throughout the book. They see and experience the best and the worst of one another in so many authentic and realistic ways, ones so relatable to real life. 

When I reached the end of this book I was left completely heartbroken, but also with so many lessons that I still carry with me to this day; it taught me to never, ever, depart without telling the people I care about that I love them in whatever way I do. It taught me that saving other people is always good, but saving yourself is just as important and necessary, and that it’s not one person’s job to save everyone. But more than anything, it taught me that giving all the love in the world may not always be enough, and that’s okay. 

I believe that this is one that anyone could enjoy, and I personally feel that it’s worth the read. It’s an incredibly authentic, blunt, emotional and heartbreaking book, while at the same time it gives you that little spark of hope about things that often feel hopeless. I highly recommend All the Bright Places to anyone and everyone.