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For this unit, I am reading the book All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. This book is a young adult fiction. In my book I have 2 main characters, Violet and Finch. But, I’ll more so be focusing on Finch. Finch is 17 years old and has already gone through some trauma that bleeds into his everyday life. He was abused as a kid by his father, gets bullied in school by people who call him “The Freak”, and he has severe depression. Finch has moments in his life where his mind goes numb and he disappears from society for a couple of months, he calls this “the asleep’”. Whenever he is out of these depressive episodes, he calls it the “the awake”. Towards the beginning of the book, Finch goes to a bell tower and almost jumps off. He doesn’t because he notices he’s not alone up there, and Violet is at the other end of the bell tower, wanting to jump off too. Violet struggles with the death of her sister Eleanor. Violet and Eleanor got into a car crash and sadly, Eleanor didn’t survive. On the 1 year anniversary of Eleanor’s death, Violet goes to the bell tower, to potentially jump off. Finch saves Violet from jumping off the ledge, and because of this, she wants to save him from his own battles. The 2 characters fall for each other, but Finch is struggling with his identity and is worried that he’ll break Violet’s heart due to his current mental state.

A scene in my book that best depicts a critical moment for Finch is on pages 306-307 when Violet tells Finch she found out that he tried to overdose on sleeping pills and ended up in a hospital. All Violet wants is to help Finch, but he says to her “I don’t need help. And I’m not Eleanor. Just because you couldn’t save her, don’t try to save me.” This makes Violet very upset. So he then goes on to say “Listen, I’m the freak. I’m the weirdo. I’m the troublemaker. I start fights. I let people down. Don’t make Finch mad, whatever you do. Oh, there he goes again, in one of his moods. Moody Finch. Angry Finch. Unpredictable Finch. Crazy Finch. But I’m not a compilation of symptoms. Not a casualty of shitty parents and an even shittier chemical makeup. Not a problem. Not a diagnosis. Not an illness. Not something to be rescued. I’m a person. I can’t help it. It’s what I am. I warned you this would happen.” Violet storms out of his house after he says all of this. In this book, the author organized it to have one chapter from Finch’s point of view, then the next chapter is Violet’s point of view, and they go back and forth like this for the whole book and switch off every chapter. In Violet’s chapters we see her point of view and hear her innermost thoughts and same goes for Finch in his chapters. But in this scene of the book, we’re in one of Violet’s chapters, but we get to hear Finch’s innermost thoughts shared with Violet. Finch always worried about a situation like this happening. Where his thoughts and feelings spiral and they hurt Violet in the process. I think the way the book was organized plays a big role in how this scene shows a critical moment in Finch’s life.

In my own life, I’ve definitely gone through many identity crises. In my middle school years, I was bullied for how little I weighed. People would ask me if I was anorexic, or if I was starving myself. Because of these hateful comments, I only saw myself as the things people called me. It made me struggle with my self confidence for years. The words people say can stick with you for so long, and it’s up to you whether you want them to stay with you forever, or try your hardest to push them aside. In my life recently I have also had an identity crisis because of the trauma I’ve gone through. It's been hard for me to separate myself from that and find out who I truly am without letting my trauma define me, but this is something that I’m continuing to fight through. My heart hurts for Finch throughout this whole book because he doesn’t want to receive help from anyone, let alone trying to help himself. Asking for help doesn’t make you weak in any way, it shows you have strength to better yourself.

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My favorite piece from the museum would have to be The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. It stood out to me because I love the colors and how abstract it is. You can tell how much they love each other because the woman is almost melting into the man and he’s holding her.

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In my life, I wish I was validated more. Specifically, by my mom. For years I’ve been wanting to make her proud of me, but sometimes its never enough. I’ve grown to validate myself and I’ve learned that being proud of myself is enough for me. Yes, it’s nice to be validated by someone else, but being proud of yourself and who you’ve become is important.

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The book that I’m reading is “All The Bright Places” by Jennifer Niven. When I was picking out a book yesterday, I knew I wanted to read this book. But if I didn’t know, I would’ve picked either “The Hate U Give” or “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. My book would be considered a novel and a young adult fiction. Another book written by this author is “Holding up the Universe”. This book would be more of a modern read than a classic. This book has been made into a movie. I like my book a lot so far because it has way more detail and new information that wasn’t included in the movie at all. But, I like picturing the characters in my head because I have seen the movie. I’m only 20 pages in, but I like it a lot so far :)

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My favorite books
- The Fault in our Stars
- Hunger Games
- Twilight Series
- The Great Gatsby