Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - All the Bright Places

Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

68 reviews

dyagan's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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the_true_monroe's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Starting off with what I disliked.

While I appreciate the author’s note and how personal this book is to the author, and how there was a lot of research into mental health and suicide, I could not see much past how badly certain topics were portrayed. Not in the way of “everyone grieves differently” or “this is real life” because all of that is true- this book did not need a happy ending and it was important to include a lot of the stuff we wish did not happen- but in how some things that were very inappropriate or not recommended were not even touched upon.

For example, when Violet tells her parents about her suicide attempt while also at the same time revealing she still was seeing Finch , all the parents mentioned aside from working to make sure Finch was okay is their disappointment. Yeah that probably was in relation to Violet’s disobedience but she literally mentioned she almost took her life and that is never addressed again by her parents.

One thing I wish there was more of in the book was that suicide support group. Although that was not really a realistic portrayal of a group (at least one that is run well) as they literally had everyone share their diagnoses and method of previous suicide attempt (which today goes against safe suicide messaging) introducing another part of who Amanda was was really nice even if she did horribly out Finch to Violet despite her knowing how much she would hate of anyone knew she herself was there.Although it was all nice when Ryan and Amanda joined Violet and Finch’s other friends for a tribute to Finch, we did not have enough character development of Amanda and especially Ryan to justify them being any different from the other mourners at the school who at best never paid any attention to Finch and at worst tormented him.

Also, Finch was pretty coercive and pushy towards Violet such as when he ripped up her note twice when she did not have a direct “yes” … like cool, you are looking for direct consent but you did not except anything but that.

And now, what I appreciated!

I did like Finch’s counselor - he was genuine and even though he started out kind of “eh” for me, he was actually direct with Finch and tried so much to help him beyond actually making him get additional help, which he acknowledges he could have done more anyway. And also, people need to want to get help and Finch did, multiple times. But even the people who fight most against suicide- for themselves and others- end up dying by suicide. And even though people say this book romanticized suicide (which I can see, especially with Violet going on the journey to visit the remaining wandering spots), I think having seen Finch in so many different states of mind- the backs and forths of what his illness does to him, and how he KNEW he wanted to live at so many points, and appreciated life and being awake- he still ended up taking his life. And that happens… a lot. Some of the best advocates for suicide prevention die by suicide even with years of saying “there is always help” and “I am here for you”. I am a suicide prevention advocate myself but also know that a lot of messaging around suicide prevention can make it seem like loved ones did something wrong or did not try hard enough. This books gets that right- how that is in no way true and suicide prevention is not about you as one person preventing a suicide but it is a collective effort across the lifespan for people to recognize the signs, and have the resources to help both themselves and others.

Closing thoughts:
While I clearly disliked this book overall, I am so glad I read it. As a suicide prevention advocate it is interesting to me to read and watch different portrayals of mental health and suicide over time. Even since this was written in 2015, so much has changed to where I know the movie addressed some things that this book did not (although I need to watch it still). I feel like if I read it around when it came out, I would have loved this as I did Thirteen Reasons Why.

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writtenwithoutanending's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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dragonmom's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

The author’s note at the end is the best thing about this book. I think she did a pretty good job of writing bipolar disorder but something about the end of the book just doesn't sit well with me. I liked the dual perspectives and the way the chapters were short. The way the characters kept track of time changed was a cute detail. Overall, I didn't really like it much and I can't quite put my finger on why. I think 16 year old me would have liked it a lot better than I do at 24.

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soupsoupsoup's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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mnatale100's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

maedavage's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

Content Warnings

tessvosper's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Content Warnings

stripy_gloves's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Content Warnings

david_slack110507's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I really do like the message of this movie. I think that while I cannot comment fully on how accurate this book is with its portrayal of mental health and suicide, from what I read I felt that it was a good portrayal of those suffering from a multitude of mental and emotional health-related problems such as survivor's guilt, suicidal thoughts, depression etc.

I do think that the main reason why I struggled to like this as much as others and rate this higher was that 1) I took A LOT of time to thoroughly read this and I'm honestly ashamed it took me those long to finish this (And it's not because it was bad/boring or anything along those lines but rather I just didn't really find the time to read it or I preferred to read other books) and 2) The main romance between Finch and Violet, while cute and definitely important just didn't fully connect with me and maybe that's a fault on my end rather than on the book's writing as I'm not the biggest fan of romance heavy/romance books in general.

I do like that the book attempted to show how anyone even those who are living the "perfect" life can suffer from mental health disorders but just maintain it so as to maintain said "perfect" life such as Amanda. However, I think that many of the side characters struggled to make an impact and stand out to the point that I sometimes forgot who the author was referring to when she mentioned a minor/side character's name (However, again this could have been my lack of focus on the book).

Overall, I wish that I had had a better time with this as there's a lot of potential and the commentary on the mental health of teens was really well done (And I like that at the end of the book, there's a list of sites for seeking help for certain issues such as suicide prevention, diagnosing mental health/illnesses in teens, bullying and abuse etc for certain countries) but I just couldn't get into it how others did but I'm glad that many could take comfort and find help or hope from this book.

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