Almost 4 years ago now I moved to NZ and my auntie was working for Penguin. I was searching for work and they needed an extra hand for a week so I got to go in and parcel up books and make sure they got sent out. One book that was just being released was All the bright places by Jennifer Niven. I liked the cover, I liked the synopsis. It was a very me book, so you would of thought I would of run off and bought it straight away. Wrong. I don’t know why but I didn’t pick this book up until two months ago. In those 4years though I have browsed it at book stores and even bought it as a book for a friend. But I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up in case it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I didn’t want it to ruin my memory with it.  

All the bright places features a young girl called Violet Markey and a young boy called Theodore Finch. Both lost in their own way, the book covers their unlikely friendship and how someone who can’t even help themselves can help others. You learn from the start that Finch suffers from depression but everyone around him keeps playing it off as just finch.
There is a point in the book where Finch isn’t doing so well, and the way Jennifer describes Finches mood hit home to me, ive never been able to put how I feel or the things I do in words sometimes and reading it on paper I was speechless. It was like she wrote about me and I couldn’t have been happier with the amount of class and realism, she handled the topic so well.

However I was questioning whether books should have trigger warnings due to what happened next in the book. Now if you want to read the book and not be spoiled stop reading this blog now.
If not, or you’ve read the book, feel free to carry on. Or stop reading now too, I won’t judge. But please stay.
I am a believer of hope and throughout the whole book I had hope and faith nothing truly bad was going to happen. Till the suicide. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I cried massive amounts that night. It was so real how me and Finch felt and yet I am still alive and he is not. (Yes I know technically he never was but in my head these characters are real) 

I wasn’t expecting it, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I searched the front of the book for any warnings etc. but all I found on the back was ‘Contains adult themes.’ Which to me indicates sex, not suicide. And I know we don’t want to spoil the reader, you have to keep the suspense alive. But I haven’t been effected by a book like this in so long, if not ever. It made me question should there be trigger warnings like you find on TV? Or should I as the reader toughen up and research my books more? 

At the end of the book I have to give credit where credit is due, there is a note from the author which explains her experience with suicide and how she has found someone she loved who had committed suicide and it made sense. The way we find finch, the raw emotion of it all how real everything is. It made sense. And I take my hat off to her for writing something so real and raw for herself and putting it into a wonderful piece of art. For I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend, just with a warning.

There is in the back helplines for every aspect covered in this which is highly appreciated. The awareness to suicide and mental health needs to be more widely accessible and in a young adult book like this, it shows to people who might never had suffered, what is like.