Why Couldn't I Save You Too?
Do you think people can save other people from the brink of death? This is what Finch did for Violet in All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. They met on the ledge of the bell tower at school. Finch talked Violet off the ledge and this ledge soon becomes a symbol of pain and suffering throughout the book. Finch saves Violet, but Violet wasn't able to return the favor and save Finch. This book is about learning that you can't save everyone and beginning to get over when someone dies. A part of the book that developed the theme that everyone can't be saved is when we find out about the death of Violet's sister Eleanor. We find out that she was killed in a car accident on the was back from a party. Violet told her to turn down a different road and the car crashed. Violet blames herself for the accident. After meeting Finch he helps her realize that it wasn't her fault. Also, that it is fine to begin to move on without her sister. Finch saves Violet from her depression that she was feeling about her sister's death.
Another section of the book that ties into no being able to save everyone is when Finch goes missing because he feels he needs space and is later found dead in the water from what looked like suicide. Finch had thought about suicide before. He had even swallowed a whole jar of sleeping pills and then rushed himself to the hospital to get his stomach pumped because he didn't want to die. In the beginning of the book he said that when he tries to commit suicide he won't fail and he was right, he didn't. Violet tried to save him when she saw that he was acting different, but she should have left him alone because it was her persistence that made him need to get away and take some space in the first place. Finch didn't want to hurt Violet and for her to see him as a freak of damaged so he took himself out of the equation. By killing himself in his mindset he was saving her from the worst version of himself.
Another part of the book that goes along with Violet not being able to save Finch is her trying to move on after Finch dies. She begins blaming herself like she did with her sister except this time she doesn't have Finch there to tell her it isn't her fault. After she goes through the phase of hating herself she starts to hate Finch and then begins hating herself again for doing this. She was angry with him because she felt like he had a choice and he took his own life away when Eleanor didn't have a choice. For Finch when he killed himself he wasn't thinking about hurting Violet he was thinking about helping her. He was suffering and in his mind he didn't have a choice he didn't think he could be saved and he didn't want to be.
Throughout the book Jennifer really showed different sides of both Finch and Violet and she brought me into the story and made me feel their struggle, their love, their pain, their suffering, and their loss. At the end of the book I felt connected to each of these characters and saw both their views of what had happened throughout the course of the book. She really got the themes across of death, pain, loss, exhaust, wanting to give up, deep thinking, running away, "sleeping" and mental disorder, and brightness or love that they have for each other. The book was relatable in some way or another to teenagers. It discussed the real problems we may have to face on a day to day basis. The feeling of loss, being alone, and not wanting to be labeled is something so many teenagers will understand.
