All the Bright Places About autobiographical novels

Autobiographical novels are a form of fictionalized autobiography, existing somewhere on the spectrum between true fiction and memoir. They are a defining feature of postmodern literature (understood as literature from the 1960s to the present), and while historically they have been deemed different from autofiction—the same thing, but written in the first person and using the other's name for the character—that distinction has since fallen out of fashion. An autobiographical novel can pull as much or as little from the author's life as they wish, and can be written from any point of view. In the literary world, there is a lot of conversation surrounding this hybrid genre, mainly because it's difficult to categorize: isn't an autobiographical novel a contradiction? Is this real or fake? Of course, many novels draw inspiration from real life experiences—whether in the author's own life, or in the life of a historical figure, etc—but the focus seems to be on how the book is labeled. Niven, for her part, has spoken about how All the Bright Places is inspired by true events from her life; the character of Finch seems to be inspired by a boy she knew who died by suicide. But when a work is "inspired by true events," the author manages to skirt the question—the publication page of Niven's novel does say, after all, that it is a work of fiction, which gives her the power to say any similarities to life are mere coincidence. While society's compulsive need to categorize things can be troubling, there is also some sense to the question, What is this? The contract laid out to a reader is different in fiction than in nonfiction. Whether we like it or not, when you say something is "nonfiction," or that it's "autobiographical," there is a newfound focus on things being true—that is, true in the factual sense.