All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

This book, another young adult installment for me, looks at the idea that despite your love for someone, it isn’t always possible to save them. Violet and Finch meet on the top of the bell tower when both are contemplating suicide but they both survive. Violet is coming to terms with her sister's accidental and Finch is battling with anger and possible bipolar disorder.
The book gently touches first love and how quickly you can fall for someone, but also the pain that comes when your idea of forever ends after a few months. It also explores the difficulty of teenage years and how easy it is to give your all to someone and then have it all taken away.
The characters like to think that they can save each other; that love covers up all their pain and if they both put everything into each other then they can save the other. As you turn the pages of this book you get more and more attached to the characters and you want, for their sake, it to result in the happy ending that they’re longing for.  The author has other plans for us, and it is well done and certainly touches on issues that young adults face in their lives.
The project results in them sharing road trips which causes them to grow closer and closer as they both frantically try to give the other a reason to live. A reason before it is too late. Finch is so obsessed with death but for Violet he finds reasons to live. Violet is so consumed with guilt but for Finch she puts the past behind her. They both try. They both want to make it. Even love can’t fix everything though, and I think throughout the text the characters start to learn this but they won’t let themselves believe it, they want this relationship to be enough to keep them both alive.
The book constantly explores life and death and it shows the reader just how valid life is, and it comes with an overpowering message of doing everything before it is too late. It shows that the thought of ‘what could have been’ can destroy a person.