{"id":3651,"date":"2015-01-11T23:50:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T07:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=3651"},"modified":"2016-03-31T13:21:04","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T20:21:04","slug":"3651","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/?p=3651","title":{"rendered":"Review: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Paperback<\/a><\/b><\/h4>\n
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Review<\/b><\/h4>\n

\u201cIt\u2019<\/em>s not what you take, it\u2019s what you leave.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

5 emotionally stunning stars<\/strong><\/p>\n

This book took me on an emotional rollercoaster and left me speechless. Totally and utterly speechless. It\u2019s the story of an unlikely friendship which grows into an amazing love between a grief-stricken girl who has lost her way, and the troubled boy who helps her find it again.<\/p>\n

Violet is a 17 year old high school student who is struggling to deal with the death of her older sister, who was also her best friend, in a car accident. Once popular, creative and care-free, she has withdrawn from everything that was important in her life.<\/p>\n

Theodore Finch enjoys flirting with death. He reads about it, writes about it, and imagines his own demise with terrifying frequency. Labelled the school \u2018freak\u2019, he is constantly trying on different personalities, and is different from the other kids \u2013 outspoken with a lack of filter and occasionally violent, he does what he wants when he wants, and doesn\u2019t seem to care what anybody thinks about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe great thing about this life of ours is that you can be someone different to everybody.\u201d <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finch and Violet meet at the top of the bell tower at school when both of them are standing on the ledge. It\u2019s not clear who saves who, but they both come down, and from that moment their lives are irrevocably intertwined. When they are paired up to do a school report on their state they are forced to spend time together, and as they \u201cwander\u201d, they open up and start to get to know each other, and they change each other\u2019s lives in ways they could never have imagined.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what I like about you, Finch? You\u2019re interesting. You\u2019re different. And I can talk to you. Don\u2019t let that go to your head.\u201d
\n\u2026 \u201cYou know what I like about you, Ultraviolet Remarkey-able? Everything.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I loved the set up of this book! Told in the dual POV of Finch and Violet, we get right to the heart of both of them. We see their hopes and dreams, but also their suffering \u2013 Violet\u2019s struggle to get over her sister\u2019s death and re-enter the world of the living, and Finch\u2019s desperate need to feel alive. It\u2019s emotional reading at times, but Finch\u2019s constant, fast talking banter keeps things light, and as they start to understand each other, they help each other find happiness, and their relationship becomes something incredibly special. And OMG, the feeeeeeels!!!!<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 bump in the ground can feel higher than a bell tower if you\u2019re standing next to the right person.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I fell hard for Finch, and every moment with him and Violet together was flawless! I adored watching their relationship progress and seeing the way they impact on each other\u2019s lives. The journey that they go on is an extraordinary one as they seek to understand themselves, and life in general. It\u2019s deep and profound, and Jennifer Niven\u2019s writing flows wonderfully as she tells her beautifully poetic and highly emotive story.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if life could be this way? Only the happy parts, none of the terrible, not even the mildly unpleasant. What if we could just cut out the bad and keep the good? This is what I want to do with Violet – give her only the good, keep away the bad, so that good is all we ever have around us.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This book deals with some really heavy issues, and as beautiful as it is, it will hit a lot of readers hard. I don\u2019t want to be all spoilery, but if you are at all curious about one of the major themes of the book, mental illness is a very prominent part of the story. It\u2019s explored in a very real and raw way, and the author doesn\u2019t shy away from the darkness of it, or how it affects the lives of not just one person, but their loved ones as well. It\u2019s heartbreaking watching as it slowly unfolds.<\/p>\n

Also, a note about the ending\u2026

<\/span>Spoiler <\/div>
This book does not have a happy ending. In fact it\u2019s heartachingly devastating. At one point I actually threw my kindle down on the bed and had to back away from it while I stared in horror taking it all in. Then I sobbed my way through the last 15% of the book with tears streaming down my face. It left me an emotional wreck and absolutely gutted. Ugly crying!! Lots of ugly crying.<\/div><\/div>\n

This book had me captivated from the very first page and the way Jennifer Niven tells the story is truly amazing! I struggled to put it down, and read it in a day and the emotional ride left me exhausted and absolutely reeling. I would have liked a little bit more closure at the end – perhaps an epilogue – but that’s a minor issue, and the way it finished is probably very fitting for the story. I know that this book will be one that I never forget.<\/p>\n

5 stars

<\/span>Spoiler <\/div>
because even though it destroyed me it, it was absolutely amazing and I loved it.<\/div><\/div>\n

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Buy:\u00a0 Kindle Ebook\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0Paperback Review \u201cIt\u2019s not what you take, it\u2019s what you leave.\u201d 5 emotionally stunning stars This book took me on an emotional rollercoaster and left me speechless. Totally and utterly speechless. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","yasr_overall_rating":5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"Product","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,49,9,124,12],"tags":[225,48,76],"class_list":["post-3651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","category-feeeeeeels","category-romance","category-sobfest","category-young-adult","tag-jennifer-niven","tag-review","tag-standalone"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/All-the-Bright-Places.jpg?fit=150%2C227&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s7gaNL-3651","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escapistbookblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}