Weekly Reader: All The Bright Places

By Jovanna Brinck

Courier Columnist

Theodore Finch, also known as “Theodore Freak,” is infamous for being loud, aggressive, and well, a freak.

Violet Markey, on the other hand, is a soft-spoken girl, who happens to fit in with the popular, superficial kids.

However, both have heartbreaking background stories. Theodore’s father dumped him and his family to the side to marry another woman and create a new family that he thinks is better. Violet survived a deadly car accident, in which her older sister was driving, and lives every day feeling guilty that she’s still alive and her sister is not.

Violet wants to leave to college, where she doesn’t have to feel like the “survivor sister” anymore.
Theodore wants to take his life, because with a depressed mom, an abusive dad, and two sisters that are suffering along with him, there isn’t any way that the life he lives will get any better.

When Theodore and Violet meet at the top of the bell tower at their school, their worlds collide into an unlikely friendship, and then some. Although they seem completely different from each other to everyone else, they have more in common than anyone thinks.

Paired to do a geography project together, the unlikely duo must wander their boring state of Indiana and discover all its natural wonders. This is when they learn that they bring out the best of one another.

With Violet, Theodore can be himself. He doesn’t have to pretend to be “Cool Theodore,” “Nerdy Theodore,” or “Punk Theodore;” he’s just Theodore, and Violet likes him that way best.

With Theodore, Violet forgets to count down the days until she graduates, and learns to live them to fullest. She no longer feels sorry for living while her sister has long since passed. As Theodore said, “None of us know how long we have [to live] [..] I like living as if I only have two days.”

Whether they’re hiking the tallest peak of Indiana, all 1257 feet of it, or riding homemade rollercoasters in the backyard of some old man’s house, they quickly learn that both in wandering and in life, “it’s not what you take, it’s what you leave.”

Inspired by her personal experiences in high school, author Jennifer Niven shows that it’s not about how long you’ve known a person, but how well you know him; the greatest of friendships can spring up in the most unlikeliest of places. Everyone deserves someone who brings out not only the best, but the most in her.

A relatively easy read, this Young Adult contemporary took a week to finish. The second half of the book is definitely a page turner, and will intrigue you on learning more about Theodore and Violet’s relationship as the story unfolds.

All the Bright Places is an emotional rollercoaster that will have you laughing one minute and bawling the next. Being a book that deals with mental illness and death, it handles the situations maturely and carefully. I would recommend this book to anyone who is feeling alone or lost, as it shows its readers that everyone has troubles that they need to overcome.