That night, they drive to the bookstore where Finch's mom works occasionally and read from Dr. Finch starts walking Violet to all her classes it bugs her, but he can tell she actually enjoys it. Embry asks him if he's been thinking about hurting himself, because he read the list on the school gossip website that named him the most suicidal student. At that point, she wants him to, but she explains it away in the car.įinch's counselor Mr. They then go to a huge chalkboard where people have written 'before I die_.' They write in dozens of responses, and Finch's last one is that he wants to kiss Violet Markey. They go to Bookmobile Park, a set of trailers that each house a different kind of book. She thinks about Finch, and she hopes he doesn't feel like she blew him off.įinch finally gets Violet into the car. Violet goes on a date with her ex-boyfriend, Ryan Cross, but doesn't have fun. Finch keeps showing up he bikes Violet to school one morning, and asks her to tell him about the accident. Violet's parents ask her if she was on the bell tower the previous week, which makes her panic, but it's just because a local reporter wanting to interview her called the house. They bike there, because Violet still won't drive in a car. Their first wander is to Hoosier Hill, the highest point in Indiana.

They exchange lines from the Virginia Woolf novel The Waves, which becomes an important book for them throughout the novel.

Finch sends Violet rules for wandering-what he has named their geography explorations-and he makes a Facebook account so he can message her. She has lost her ability to write since the accident, and thinks maybe that part of her is gone. Violet deletes the website,, that she and her sister used to have. Finch pushes her to tell him why she was on the bell tower that day-she tells him it would have been her sister Eleanor's nineteenth birthday, but that the real reason she was there is that nothing matters, everything is just filler until death. She is resistant, but eventually relents. In geography class, he chooses her as his partner for a project that tasks them with discovering sites around Indiana. From the moment he meets her on the bell tower, Finch wants to impress Violet and get to know her. Finch is ostracized because of his erratic behavior, and because of the stigma surrounding mental illness. Violet is one of the most popular girls in school, but she has been more reclusive since her sister died the previous year in a car accident. She is scared, and Finch talks her down to safety. Finch, who struggles with depression and often exhibits distressing behavior, spots Violet, who is having a momentary low and wanted to know what it would feel like on the edge. The novel All the Bright Placesopens with two teenagers, Theodore Finch and Violet Markey, meeting on the ledge of their high school bell tower.

All the bright places pages