realmegano 's review for:

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
4.5
challenging dark emotional medium-paced
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
TW: depression, mental health disorders, suicide

4.5 stars

That hurt.  And I'm sad, because I see so much of myself in Finch.  I just knew what was going to happen - but I needed to keep reading it, even though it was sad.  I think that speaks to the compelling nature of this book.  I feel like a lot of young adults (especially within the 15-18 age range) are let down by systems AND family members who could try to help them.  It was glaringly evident in this book, that certain family dynamics ignore mental illness, as if that makes the problems go away.  I'm not sure what Finch's dad could be diagnosed with, but ignoring mental health issues for years clearly contribution to the imploding of their family unit.  How would Finch's life have been different, if mental illness, anger problems, and dark moods weren't simply ignored?  That's one of the reason this book hurt so much: maybe it could have been different.  Maybe Finch would not have felt like he did and completed suicide (if there is a better term for this, I am 100% willing to change the terminology). 

I saw some comments about this book just basically saying the main character was his mental illness - and I think a) that's part of having such overwhelming depression and mental illness - it feels like that's WHO you are and b) there is a whole part about how labels aren't necessarily helpful, people are more than their OCD, ADHD, MDD, BPD, GAD, etc etc.  People are obviously entitled to their opinions, but as a someone diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder - I saw myself in so many characters.  Medicine and therapy saved my life, but I still, when extremely anxious or in a depressive episode, wonder about dying and when I will die.  This book worked for me, not because it told me "life will always be better and nothing bad will happen if you get help and have a life outside of your depression" (because it didn't give that message), but because I recognized myself in characters.  We just had different end results - I had a lot of therapy and anti depressants and friend support.  Unfortunately that's not the reality for some people, and I think that is an important story to be told.  People aren't magically fixed because they find a support person - nor is it that person's responsibility to save their life.  It's a devastating story and I think it was handled really well.
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