Love, Life and the Loss of Identity in ATBP

All the Bright Places is an emotionally riveting book that makes love, light and living all intertwine in a YA novel. Violet’s sister died in a car crash and Violet hasn’t been the same since. She shows signs of depression and totally disengages from her previous life. Finch is the school freak who is extreme in all things. He is obsessed with death and “feels numbness when he is alive” (94). They meet on a bell tower ledge at their school, where they’re both contemplating suicide. They save one another and end up falling for each other. This book really takes on a challenging perception of teenage love. They don’t lock eyes and immediately fall in love, but they grow a bond over the attempt to take their lives. They are two people who are trying to find themselves and discover their true selves within one another. This quest for identity plays a major role in ATBP. Finch feels out of his own skin, he hates the numbing buzz of being alive and only feels the rush of life when he is on the brink of death. He wants to die. However, he always finds a reason to live. He is searching for his reason to die as we would search for a reason to live (a passion, a love or occupation). Violet has lost everything she was. Her identity somehow passed with her sister. To the point where she wears her own sister’s glasses so she can “see what she saw. [She] can be both of [them] at once so no one will have to miss her, most of all me (49).” This missing piece latches onto her identity and practically makes her invisible.

A symptom of depression can be a loss of self or change in mood, the book incorporates both of their illnesses in this way. Though I would argue that Finch’s depression/bipolar disorder is much stronger than Violet’s, they are both issues that lead to bigger problems. A quote I thought was really significant was when Finch said “but the great thing about this life of ours is that you can be someone different to everybody” (231). I feel like this ties this book in with the real world. We all seem to be different versions of ourselves depending on the situation and ATBP connects a common human trait to someone who is significantly bipolar. Violet addresses this at his house when she comes across “walls that are lined with school photos. Finch in kindergarten. Finch in middle school. He looks different every year, not just agewise but personwise. Class-clown Finch. Awkward Finch. Cocky Finch. Jock Finch” (242). Finch never seems to fully find his true self. Adjustments like these usually take someone a year or two to figure out, but Finch’s loss of identity makes this discovery completely unobtainable. His life is dedicated to discovering his true self, and despite all of the trials, never truly does.

Finch even acknowledges his lack of identity when Violet “looks at me as if there's only me, as if she can see past the flesh and bone and bullshit right into the me that's there, the one I don't even see myself.” The absolute power of this line is unreal. Anyone in love can connect to this level of understanding. When I reflect on my life, the way my fiancé understands me in a way I couldn’t never understand myself is so overpowering. It’s serenity and chaos all in one sitting. I could feel it, deep in my skin, the way that Finch does in this line. This book was one of those books that hovers over you a few days after you read it like the end of a cold. This book was so amazing and depicted love in a challenging way. Though I wouldn’t teach it in my classroom, I would highly recommend it to more emotionally mature students.