Reasons Why Every Human Being Alive Should Read All The Bright Places
a (very treasured, very lovely) letter written by Sian
1. Every issue in the book is real.
Unlike the usual fiction books I read for pleasure, I can see the story unfolding in my life and this gives me some control over the situations. As much as I love Harry Potter, the ideas are concealed in a package of magic and the excitement of what isn’t real (or so people tell me, I’m still waiting for my Hogwarts acceptance letter). All The Bright Places takes things like suicide, death, love, sex, friendship, family, abuse and many other ideas and hits you square in the face. While this seems brutal in print, that’s what will happen in life. Love will not find you through dueling wizards and fighting dragons but through conversations and unexpected meetings.
2. Despite being romantic, All the Bright Places doesn’t romanticize suicide.
For the sake of aesthetics and continuity I will explain my reasoning behind this, though I obviously do not need to. Too often has suicide been associated with the desperate love affair of Romeo and Juliet, but the dawn of a new era is upon us. Last year two teenagers in my town have committed suicide within three months of each other. Suicide hits a small town with the ferocity of a bomb and the gossip kicks in. Though I didn’t know them at all, I still felt responsible for their passing simply because our paths ran parallel on this grand journey of life and maybe if I was to go back in time or if a butterfly were to have flapped its wings differently a hundred years ago they would still be here. Though Shakespeare is wonderful, I am disappointed that this year every student in my grade will read Macbeth and not your book.
3. Everyone will experience this book in their life.
As I mentioned before, since I began the wonderful journey that is reading your book I have felt more in control of situations I have faced that are similar to that in the story. Whether this is a rare occurrence or not, everyone should have this experience under their belt. As we are humans exploring this world and every step we take will change it, we will all encounter stigma around mental illness and suicide, the difficulties of letting go, death, loss, change, deciding your future, love, sex, friendship, family, school, abuse and so much more. All the Bright Places will help me in life and I am so grateful to have read it.
As I see All The Bright Places as a living thing rather than lines arranged into letters, arranged into words, put on pages bound together that I stared at for a while, I say this to All the Bright Places but will mention it to you too,
"You are all the colours in one at full brightness."
