I honestly wasn’t expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did. I had heard of it before and my Mum bought it for me for my birthday, it’s described in similar ways to The Fault In Our Stars so I thought – why not give it a go?
The book follows the stories of teenage high-school students Violet Markey (Violet) and Theodore Finch (Finch) who meet on the edge of a Bell tower at their school.
The premise of the story is that Finch wants to die and Violet has experienced the own death of her sister Eleanor first-hand in a car crash. The two slowly but surely fall in love with one another but Finches world is shrinking as Violet cares more and more about him.
They both begin a school project together which has been issued by their school teacher Mr Black and they set out to wander Indiana together on a ‘wandering project’. They share the ‘wandering’ places together until one day Finch just goes quiet and disappears.
Violet is worried sick about him but the only contact her and his friends (who become her friends) are some sporadic emails. They are clues as to where Finch is but Violet is too late. She goes to the first place she deciphers from Finches clues and finds he has drowned himself. She is devastated and can’t help but wonder whether it was all her fault. She worries she wasn’t good enough and that she should have tried to under him and why he was feeling so low.
In the end, in memory of Finch she goes to the remaining ‘wandering’ places and discovers he has added some more to the map. She visits them all and leaves behind some treasures, she also finds where Finch has been in the locations.
This bittersweet story is definitely a 5/5 stars for me. I cried when Violet finds Finch drowned as it is such a sad ending to the incredible life of this boy who had so much to live for. The book is based on a true story as one of the authors good friends committed suicide themselves. This, to me gives the book even more of an important message.
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