Saturday, January 17, 2015

What is Jennifer Niven reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jennifer Niven, author of All the Bright Places.

Her entry begins:
I need to start by saying that, as a rule, I’m not a huge fan of dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction. But I’m reading two books right now that have world-ending settings, and I cannot read them fast enough. Station Eleven (by Emily St. John Mandel) was a 2014 National Book Award Finalist, something that isn’t usually part of my criteria when choosing what to read. What hooked my interest was that the story is about artists at the end of the world. In this case, a nomadic group of musicians and actors—the Traveling Symphony—who roam the country in the wake of civilization’s ruin performing Shakespeare. That’s all I needed to know, but the novel is so much more than that. Mandel’s writing is...[read on]
About All the Bright Places, from the publisher:
The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning!


Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.
Visit Jennifer Niven's website.

Writers Read: Jennifer Niven.

--Marshal Zeringue