All the Bright Places is a phenomenal book on how despite your love for someone it isn’t always possible to save them.

Violet and Finch meet on the top of the bell tower when both are contemplating suicide and it is unclear who saves who; but they both survive. Violet is coming to terms with a past tragedy and Finch is battling with his mental health problems.

The book gently touches on first love and how quickly you can fall for someone but also the pain that comes when your idea of forever ends after a few months. It also explores the difficulty of teenage years and how easy it is to give your all to someone and then have it all taken away.

The characters like to think that they can save each other; that love covers up all their pain and if they both put everything into each other then they can save the other.

As you turn the pages of this book you get more and more attached to the characters and you want, for their sake, it to result in the happy ending that they’re longing for. They’re both so young and their lives so complicated but they give this relationship a try because of a school project that brings them together. The project results in them sharing road trips which causes them to grow closer and closer as they both frantically try to give the other a reason to live. A reason before it is too late. Finch is so obsessed with death but for Violet he finds reasons to live. Violet is so consumed with guilt but for Finch she puts the past behind her. They both try. They both want to make it. Even love can’t fix everything though, and I think throughout the text the characters start to learn this but they won’t let themselves believe it, they want this relationship to be enough to keep them both alive.

The book constantly explores life and death and it shows the reader just how valid life is, and it comes with an overpowering message of doing everything before it is too late. It shows that the thought of “what could have been” can destroy a person.

Overall, the book is a must read and your longing for the characters to pull through keeps you turning page after page; you can’t put it down. It is one of those books that you still remember months after reading it because the characters and the storyline they followed touched your heart in a way that you can’t forget them.

It is a book that you can link back to your own life and it reminds you how fragile everything is and how important it is to treasure every moment with a loved one before it can be snatched away. You will never look at anything in the same manner after reading this book; it changes your view on everything.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven – review, longlisted for the Guardian children’s fiction prize 2015, is available from the Guardian bookshop.

Congratulations to Hannah Mulcahy, aged 15, for her Young Critics award 2015-winning review.