Title: All the Bright Places

Author: Jennifer Niven

Published: January 2015

Publisher: Alfred A. Knoph

ISBN: 9780385755887

Genre: YA Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Mental Health

Interesting & Reading Level: 9th grade & up, AR Level 5.3

Reader's Annotation: When two broken teens find each other on the ledge of their lives, they find something worth living for. Can that last, though? 

Plot Summary:

Violet Markey and Theodore Finch meet while standing on the ledge of the school bell tower; Finch helps guide Violet back down before she slips. Finch and Violet are seniors in high school, trying to just get by in their small Indiana town, and make it through graduation. Violet is a popular girl, dealing with the loss of her older sister, Eleanor. She has put her life on hold since the car crash the year before, dropped out of cheerleading, stopped writing, and found that some teachers will let her get by on the excuse of "not being ready". Finch, a once popular boy, became an outsider when he started to change in early adolescence. He is affected by undiagnosed bipolar disorder and is obsessed with suicidal ideation. After the tower indecent, the two are paired on a class project to discover Indiana and begin to bond. Violet finds that life is still worth living but Finch is going through one of his "awake" periods and is afraid of shutting down again. Will Violet be enough of a bright place for Finch to hold on to? 

Critical Evaluation:

All the Bright Places is written in a dual first-person narrative from Violet's and Finch's perspectives. This allows the reader to understand what each is going through and their emotional states as the story progresses. This style also enables readers to observe the changes in Finch gradually as he becomes more manic and a bit desperate in his "awake" state. It also allows for the reader to observe Violet coming to terms with what happened with her sister and moving past her guilt as she learns to live again. Another interesting element related to their perspectives is how each character is keeping track of the passage of time; each chapter is marked by the character's name followed by how that character has marked that day (i.e. "Finch: Day 7 of the Awake", "Violet: 145 days till liberation", or "Finch: The first warm day"). These subheadings give insight to how each is seeing the passing of time and is a nod to the changes each are experiencing.  This gives extra information about how the character feels as readers begin each chapter.

One of the most important themes in All the Bright Places is mental health. It is immediately brought up by Finch in the beginning of the book when the school counselor brings up his extended absence from school. Finch does not tell his councilor the real reason he has been absent but internally he talks about how it would be easier if he had a visible disease like measles because it would be a straightforward diagnosis that everyone could understand. Later, Finch brings up that his mother does not acknowledge that he is sick because he isn't afflicted by something easily measurable like a temperature; it's just his quirkiness. Finch later addresses the stigma that comes with mental health when he talks about not wanting to be explained, "away as an illness". Unlike physical health, mental health is something that often goes unacknowledged in our society and is taboo to talk about. By making Finch bipolar, Niven is challenging this taboo and shedding light on mental health.

About Jennifer Niven:

"By the time I was ten, I had already written numerous songs, a poem for Parker Stevenson ("If there were a Miss America for men, You would surely win"), two autobiographies (All About Me and My Life in Indiana: I Will Never Be Happy Again), a Christmas story, several picture books (which I illustrated myself) featuring the Doodle Bugs from Outer Space, a play about Laura Ingalls Wilder's sister entitled Blindness Strikes Mary, a series of prison mysteries, a collection of short stories featuring me as the main character (an internationally famous rock star detective), and a partially finished novel about Vietnam. I was also an excellent speller from a very early age.

In 2000, I started writing full-time, and I haven't stopped... I've written nine books, and when I'm not working on the tenth, I'm contributing to my web magazine, Germ, thinking up new books, and dabbling in TV. I am always writing." - from her website

Book Talk Ideas: This is a great book to open a dialog about mental health and how we view mental health as a society. This book is also a good way to talk about how people deal with grief.

Curriculum Ties: N/A

Challenge Issues: Sex, language, metal health, suicide, anxiety, and depression

How to handle a challenge:

• Listen to the censor's concerns and issues. Many times being heard is what they most want out of their challenge.
• Have a copy of your library's collection policy on hand as a reference if they have questions as to why the title was selected.
• Knowing the basics of the ALA's Library Bill of Rights can also be an aid in discussing the reasoning for including a title.
• Keeping a file of reviews from professional sources, good and bad, can help you be prepared for a challenge. Having copies of the positive review(s) to give to the censor may also be a valuable resource.
• Be aware of any awards the title has won and the significance of the award.
• As a last resort you can offer them a Reconsideration Form

Why this title? I included this title because mental health is an important issue that is gradually becoming less taboo in our society. Many young people deal with mental health disorders silently and it's something they should not feel required to keep to themselves. Certain genetically linked disorders, like bipolar, are often onset during adolescence and it is something that we all should be aware of.