The novel opens with Finch wondering if that day is a good day to die. Standing on the ledge of the school bell tower, looking out at the pavement below, he doesn’t recall climbing up there: he has been in “the asleep” for over a month, all through the holiday season. Finch holds out his arms and yells in the voice of a preacher that he would like to welcome everyone to his death. Still speaking out loud, he bequeaths all of his possessions to Charlie Donahue, Brenda Shank-Kravitz, and his sisters.
Finch notices some of his classmates still wandering outside after the bell has rung. One boy looks up toward him, and Finch assumes the others either didn’t see him or don’t care, because to them he’s just Theodore Freak. But then the boy seems to be looking at something else, and as Finch turns, he sees a girl standing on the ledge on the other side of the tower. She has dark-blond hair and her skirt is filling up with air.
Calmly, Finch tells her the worst thing to do is look down. She turns slowly to face him, and he says he knows her, she is Violet Markey, the cheerleader and popular girl. Violet blinks but says nothing, and Finch continues to talk calmly, trying to distract her. Violet begins to panic when someone on the ground spots her; Finch, sensing her embarrassment, yells out, “‘Don’t try to save me! You’ll only kill yourself!’” (8). Once Finch safely gets her off the ledge, there is a moment when he feels the peace and weightlessness of an imagined jump, but it is Violet’s turn to talk him down; she repeats the same words to him, and they both move to safety.
When Finch tries to press Violet about why she was on the ledge, she pushes him off, saying she was just sitting. Finch asks her if she’s ever had a perfect day from start to finish; she hasn’t, and neither has he. He tells her he’s looking for one, and Violet whispers thank you to him, kissing him on the cheek.
Finch sees his counselor, Mr. Embry (“Embryo,” to Finch) for his weekly counseling session. Finch is on probation after several episodes last year, and their meetings are one of his requirements to remain in school. Mr. Embry asks him what he was doing on the bell tower, if he was trying to kill himself. He reminds Finch that if the principal hears about it, he’s looking at suspension, and if anything were to happen to Finch, Mr. Embry would be on the hook. Finch deflects all of his concern, though he does privately recognize that Mr. Embry is one of the only adults who actually cares about his well-being.
Violet sees her counselor, Mrs. Kresney, who she’s been meeting with in the wake of her sister Eleanor’s death. Mrs. Kresney asks Violet if she’s been having any more nightmares, and then asks about college. She asks why Violet didn’t apply to NYU, as creative writing there had always been her top choice. Violet lies, saying she missed the deadline. Mrs. Kresney pushes Violet about her website, EleanorAndViolet.com, but Violet doesn’t want to talk about that either; she hasn’t written since Eleanor’s death. Mrs. Kresney poses more questions to Violet: has she driven yet, does she feel guilty, does she understand the complexities of being a survivor…but at that point Violet leaves the meeting. Throughout the rest of the day, peers ask Violet if it’s true that she saved Finch’s life.
In class later that day, Finch again comes to Violet’s rescue when she arrives late, drops one book, and then loses control of all her other books. Everyone laughs, as high-schoolers are known to do, and Finch sees the embarrassment rush over her, so he pushes his own books off his desk, making a scene. The teacher, Mr. Black, explains the project he wants them to complete: exploring and writing about two or three wonders of Indiana. Finch declares that he chooses Violet as his partner. When she asks the teacher if she can do something else, as she has been allowed to do all year since the accident, Mr. Black says he is doing her a favor by saying no: she must do the regular assignment. It’s then that everything clicks for Finch: Violet’s sister is the girl that died; Violet doesn’t want attention because she’s the sister who survived.
At home that night, Finch reads about Eleanor Markey. He makes a Facebook account and adds only Violet as a friend. When she messages him a few hours later to say that he ambushed her in class, and asking why he wanted to work with her anyway, he sends her a long message about how there are places that need to be seen, how even the smallest places might be able to mean something to them. Violet doesn’t respond, but Finch doesn’t care: he is grateful to be awake that day.
Violet goes to Amanda Monk’s house and immediately regrets going, wondering how she was ever friends with those kids to begin with. There are more people there than she expected, so she tells Amanda she isn’t feeling well and needs to go. When she leaves, she runs into her ex-boyfriend Ryan Cross, who she thinks is perfect and, unlike her, not messy. When she gets home, she sees that Finch has posted a video to her wall of him singing. She messages him right away asking to take it down, and he says they should talk about the bell tower. Violet deflects, and Finch says he is going to come over so they can talk in person. She panics at the thought of Amanda’s party around the corner, but when she messages him to change her mind, he doesn’t answer.
Analysis:
These chapters introduce the major themes of the novel, namely the discussion of suicide and depression, survivor’s guilt, and ostracization. Finch doesn’t explicitly say he is depressed, but rather he refers to periods of his life as “the awake” and “the asleep,” which we can understand as symbols for the times when is out of and inside of a bout of severe depression, where he feels shut off from the rest of the world. In the chapters written from his perspective, the time is marked in days awake—i.e., the novel opens with, “I am awake again. Day 6.” This structuring shows how significant a role the depression has in life; it is literally the thing around which he organizes his days.
The fact that the novel opens with two characters contemplating suicide—for Finch, an occasion in a chronic condition of suicidal ideation; for Violet, in an apex of her pain and confusion—drives home the fact that this is a central theme of the work. In terms of the plot, it also functions as foreshadowing, much like Chekov’s smoking gun (if we see a gun in act one, it has to go off by the end of the play; in other words, every detail must be relevant to the story). If they are considering suicide in chapter one, we expect to see a death by the end of the novel.
Niven’s inclusion of suicide from the very beginning of the novel shows her gentleness with the subject. This isn’t going to be a happy, typical love story that then suddenly takes a dramatic turn, bringing in a suicide as a plot-device. By showing us that these characters are struggling with their mental health from the outset, Niven has given us deep and honest characterization. Mental health is as much a part of these characters and their stories as anything else.
Furthermore, Niven’s balancing of mood shows a thoughtful attention to the subject matter. Particularly with Finch, there is a continuous modulation between difficult material and lighter material. Finch is suicidal, yes, but he is also a teenage boy who wants to impress Violet; Finch appreciates his counselor’s concern, but he also wants to make jokes. The effect of this light/dark balancing is that the mood feels honest to a teenager, and ensures that the inclusion of difficult material has a deeper purpose than to exploit pain or trauma for emotional impact.
In Violet’s plot line, there is an interesting mirroring at play. Her counselor urges her to understand her position as a survivor, and Violet wants nothing to do with that; it’s clear that she struggles with being the surviving sister, with why she lived and Eleanor died. Her guilt has several prongs: she is guilty that she’s alive and Eleanor is not, she is guilty that she hasn’t gotten over it yet, she is guilty on the days when she manages to feel somewhat normal. There is a striking symmetry between this and the event at the bell tower: Finch saves Violet, and yet he shifts the story, letting everyone think that she saved him. People are coming to her asking about what happened, condemning him for considering jumping, all while only she and Finch know the truth.
