[This review contains spoilers.] Violet Markie and Theodore Finch are 17 years old, finishing up high school. They are both smart and sensitive. This young adult novel starts out with them meeting by accident at the top of a tower in high school, where they have both gone to contemplate jumping off. Theodore talks Violet out of it, and then tells everyone else that she talked him out of it. We learn more about the two as the story proceeds. At first, it is much clearer why Violet is so desperate: her older sister died in a car accident less than a year ago, and Violet blames herself. Finch makes an effort to befriend her and engage her in a school project where the two of them have to find out more about their state, Indiana. There is romance. The two of them have fun and everything seems simple. But then things get worse with Finch. His mood deteriorates. We gradually learn more about his problems, with a long term disposition towards darkness and a very dysfunctional family, with a mother who pays no attention to him at all.  It becomes clear that his problems are very serious, and there are times when his thinking is very distorted.

All the Bright Places is in most ways a standard YA high school romance. The chapters are narrated alternately by the boy and the girl. There are usual sorts of themes: the popular girl and the outcast boy. There are some bullies and well-meaning teachers and counselors. There is kissing, making out, and sex. But then it gets more serious. It becomes clear that Finch is not just charismatic, but going through manic episodes. He has a major mental illness. He really may not survive. As you get through the novel, you start to wonder how far author Jennifer Niven will go with this theme, and how dark she is willing to make her story. It turns out that she is ready to go very far, and it is a bit shocking. If there are any YA novels that should come with trigger warnings, then this is one of them.

So it is a story about grief, mental illness, recovery, and coming to terms with hard realities. It is done well. Both narrators are drawn convincingly. Violet’s parents are doing their own grieving but they are able to pay attention to their surviving daughter, even if they find it very difficult to talk about their dead one. Finch has a lot of insight but not much self-control. The two of them connect on many levels, and one of the main themes of their story is their mutual interest in Virginia Woolf, which lends the story an unexpectedly literary thread. Both Finch and Violet are very well read and so this isn’t as impossible as it would seem for most high school students. It is a memorable novel raising issues that are hard to discuss, but given the rate of suicide in young people, they need to be talked about.

The performance of the unabridged audiobook by Kirby Heyborne and Ariadne Meyers is strong: both readers bring their characters to life, with an appropriate mixture of youthful exuberance and desperation.

© 2016 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York