Meem's Reviews > All the Bright Places

Goddammit.

There were a lot of problems with this book. It's so easy to sloppily romanticise depression and mental illness that writers probably don't even realise they're doing it. Readers don't notice. These books make some readers angry because they believe tragedy and trauma are being used as cheap plot devices but others find it relatable and it helps them cope.

This one has a lot of sicklit tropes. It's a tearjerker. I hate that Finch's depression and death was used as fodder for Violet's post-traumatic growth, even though seasoned readers could probably see the suicide coming from a mile away. (I was hoping against hope it wouldn't happen.) This book made me cry (I cried through the last 50 pages) because it made suicide look beautiful but it isn't, goddammit, so stop making me feel like it is. Stop doing this to me, writers. Now that the bubble's burst, I hate this book for emotionally manipulating me by making a character so relatable I was identifying myself and my loved ones in them. I feel sad because the writer meant well and wrote from personal experience and this book must have been her coping with her own grief and loss...

This book got to me, badly.