All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven is probably the only book that has left me scarred, yet healed at the same time.
17/03/20
This book is written in a way most modern romances are. It is like a freestyle choreography, it flows without the necessary condition of being a masterpiece. I am halfway through the story, and there is nothing: neither a push, nor a pull. Just a weird gravity. A force that keeps me in the story. And I can't really defy the force.
20/03/20
I have read the whole book. I'm quiet. I don't know what else to be. I am just, quiet. Because death is quiet. Theo is dead. Drowned. Bipolar. And dead. Violet is alive in his death. She's breathing, loving, living... And I think that that's a beautiful death. It's a beautiful death if it helps someone find their heartbeat again. It's a beautiful death if it is complete, and Theo's was a complete death.
I know it was terrible. I know he should've fought more. I know he should've done it for Violet. I know that.
But he was complete only when he drowned. He wasn't Theo, or freak, or a bullied child. He was complete. He was truly remarkable only when he was under that water, and I respect that.
I don't associate anything but trauma with death. I don't deal well with it. I'm a mess. Hence, I believe that Violet is a very brave woman. She may be the bravest girl I've come across. And I wish to be like her. Whole and broken at the same time; all her pieces beautiful and loved by a love as pure as Theo's.
I can't say more than this. As I said, I'm quiet. Just, quiet. As quiet as the Blue Hole would be after Theo.
I made these short notes when I read this book. Very cryptic ones. But that is all that I can say about this book. It is just that quiet. It is gripping in its sorrow, alive in its reality, and beautiful in its ending.
"The thing I realize is, that it's not what you take, it's what you leave”
I took a lot from this story... I just don't know what I left for it.