Burn Brightly

Title:  All The Bright Places

Author: Jennifer Niven

Publisher: Knopf  1/6/15

Violet is the popular girl. Finch is the school freak.  Two people who would never so much as look at each other.  Until the day they both end up on the same tower, contemplating suicide.  And what starts as an ending turns out to be a beginning, but can the darkness be held at bay?

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I've just finished All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven.  My eyes are red.  There's crumpled up tissue in the trash can.  I used it to wipe my eyes.  I'm even sniffling as I type.

All the Bright Places reduced me to tears.  

It's a bit challenging to write this review for a couple of reasons.  First, I don't want to spoil it for you.  Second, because I'm still feeling very emotional about it.   I am not a weepy person.  I read horror and butt-kicking action novels.  Books where things go boom.  I don't cry at books!

This is a smart, edgy, contemporary YA novel.  It's got so much sweetness and sadness that it hurts to read it at times.  About halfway through the novel, I took a break and read something else.  I knew that there was simply no way that the book didn't contain some sort of heartbreak.  And boy did it.  Heartbreak upon heartbreak mixed with love and hope.

The story is simply beautiful.  And oh, I don't want my daughter to grow up to be one of these teens. And I don't want to be these parents.

When I was a teen, I would have devoured this book.  Funny as it seems since he's a guy, Finch is like the Sylvia Plath of a new generation.  He burns brightly, but still burns.

I'm drained.  I don't think I'll read this book again, simply because I can't take it.  But I want everyone I know to read it.  And then breathe.