Suicidal boy meets suicidal girl on the ledge of a bell tower, and neither of them jump. Who saves who is left unclear. That’s the beginning of Theodore Finch and Violet Markey’s story. Fans of authors like John Green, Rainbow Rowell, or Jay Asher, then I suggest you find a comfy chair to cuddle up in while reading this beauty called “All the Bright Places” by Jennifer Niven.

Finch is an odd, mentally ill teen who is always coming up with different ways to end his life. The only thing that is stopping him is when something good happens to him, Violet being one of those things. She is counting the days until graduation, when she can finally escape their Indiana town and the grief of her sister’s death. They are then partnered together on a class project after the bell tower incident.

This novel was the winner of the 2015 Goodread’s Choice Awards for Young Adult Fiction, and it’s not hard to see why after reading this lovely tale.

Although the story follows the damaged boy meets damaged girl and they end up growing closer cliché, this story just feels different.

Taking a sensitive topic like mental health and using that to bring characters together is a rather unique way to spin a story, especially when you have the characters meeting on a bell tower ledge.

“All the Bright Places” is also unique in the way it is written. It’s fairly common for young adult novels to play with a reader’s heartstrings, giving the reader lots of highs before dropping them off an emotional cliff only to be left stunned or dumbfounded.

The narrative in Niven’s novel is mellow, following a steady pace that is constant throughout the book right up until the last word.

This might stem from Niven’s past of writing historical fiction novels, and if that is the case then I believe it only gives this cliché theme a wonderful new spin.