Another book that I included in my 4 Summer Reads post which I read on my 2 week holiday was All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. I had heard not only Zoe, but many other people saying how good this book was and how important it is to the public views on mental health, so I knew I had to read it.
I don’t suffer from any mental health illnesses myself, but
I have come across people in my life who do and I have seen stories on the news
etc. about people all over the world with mental health illnesses and I knew
how awful it can end for people or how hard it can be to live with. I think
Jennifer hits the nail on the head with this book, it shows exactly how hard
mental illness is to deal with as well as the extreme result of people going
without the help and support they truly needed.
This book follows the story of Theodore Finch and Violet
Markey, 2 people who both suffer from mental illnesses and they meet on the top
of a clock tower, where they are both about to take their own life. That’s
about all I’m going to say about the actual story line because 1. I could never
do the story justice trying to tell it myself and 2. I don’t want to ruin it
for anyone who has not yet read it and would like to.
The relationship between the 2 characters grows throughout
the book, and you feel like you are in that story with them, not just a reader.
You get so emotionally attached to the characters in this book it is impossible
to put the book down. Every chapter ends with you wanting to move onto the next
straight away, because you’re constantly wanting to know more about the 2.
Another thing I love about this book is that it swaps
between Theodore and Violet’s point of view throughout the whole story, so it
isn’t just from one person’s perspective. You get to know both sides of the
story and I think that allows you to become really involved with both Violet
and Theodore, because you know what is going on in both their minds, not just
one. I think that’s what made this book really interesting for me because most
books are just from one person’s point of view or from the point of view on the
outside, so you never really get to see inside the mind of more than one
character. I think for a book about mental illness this is really important
because you see the way the person acts in front of another person, but you
also see how that person is feeling inside at each moment which is something
totally unique.
Overall I absolutely loved this book and I think it took me
about 3 or 4 days to read which shows I clearly enjoyed it as I honestly picked
it up at every free moment I had, and then proceeded to struggle to put it down!
This is probably one of my favourite books now and I would
definitely read it again, huge recommendation!
Have you read All The Bright Places? What did you think?
