All the Bright Places

otter - I don't think I have ever read a more beautiful or heartbreaking book. Jennifer Niven has created incredibly real and moving characters, "UltraViolet Re-Markey-able" and Theodore Finch, stuck in a tiny town in Indiana. They meet on the top of a bell tower at school, each of them not knowing what they were going to do, and somehow, they saved each other. They are paired together for a school project to find the "natural wonders" of Indiana, and Violet, who has recently suffered from her sister's death, slowly learns to stop counting the days and start living. Slowly, or maybe not so slowly, Theodore and and Violet fall in love. Told in alternating points of view, All The Bright Places was so beautifully written.

Starred review from November 3, 2014
Seniors Theodore Finch and Violet Markey run into each other on their school bell tower, contemplating what it would be like to jump. It’s more dark-cute than meet-cute, which also describes the book. Finch thinks about suicide every day; Violet was happy until her sister died in a car crash. While Finch, aka “Theodore Freak,” is a marginal presence in their high school, he’s smart and handsome—a musician who, readers gradually realize, suffers from undiagnosed manic depression. Violet is equally smart, and as they traverse Indiana for a geography project, looking for “wonders,” they flirt, argue, admit dark secrets, and fall in love. In her YA debut, adult author Niven (Velva Jean Learns to Drive) creates a romance so fresh and funny that it seems like it could save Finch; she also makes something she foreshadows from the first line surprising. The journey to, through, and past tragedy is romantic and heartbreaking, as characters and readers confront darkness, joy, and the possibilities—and limits—of love in the face of mental illness. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency.