Title: All The Bright Places
Author: Jennifer Niven
Ratings: 4/5 stars
Series? No
I read a YA contemporary novel. No, hell has not frozen over, the sun still rises from the East etc… I just wanted to join in on a twitter chat with the author. IT HURTS TOO MUCH. I still haven’t fully recovered from the emotional beating- all I know is that my heart is weak and I need a good dose of SFF to recover. Anyway, slightly different format of reviewing today to commemorate this blog’s first contemporary review! Oodles of quotes because the writing in this book is beautiful!
The story of a girl who learns to live from a boy who wants to die.
That quote is pulled from from the cover of the book, it promises you’ll be in a world of pain. Now, I do not like books that set out to make me cry – I hate emotional manipulation. However, I couldn’t help but be pulled into these characters – stoic and cynical as I am. It helped that Jennifer Niven wrote the book from a very personal and painful experience, so the book came across genuine.
The book starts with Violet who’s contemplating to end her life at the school’s bell tower. Once, she lead a charmed life. She was beloved sister, daughter, and friend. She’s still has the latter, but a car accident has left her sister dead and her broken. Violet suffers grief and survivor’s guilt, she can’t reconcile the life she lead before the accident with the one after – how can she continue being perfect when a part of her has been torn away? Her struggle was something I could wholly empathise with.
