Clay Jensen comes home from school and finds a package waiting for him…He’s excited…Nothing like an unexpected package – with no return addresss – to make your day. What Clay finds inside is a shoebox full of cassette tapes. What he hears when he inserts the first tape is the voice of Hannah Baker. Hannah, the girl he’d had a crush on, went to school with, and worked with at the movie theater. The girl who had changed, drastically, in the past few months.
Hannah Baker, the girl who committed suicide.
Clay soon realizes that these tapes aren’t just a suicide note, instead, these are thirteen reasons — thirteen people, to be exact — who created a snowball-effect of events that led Hannah to believe that suicide was her only option. But why is Clay on that list? How could he possibly be one of the reasons that she killed herself? You’ll learn along with Clay that it’s impossible to stop the future or rewind the past…
Review
The single saddest thing about this book is its cover! It catches female teen eyes like an Anthropologie display, but boys ignore it as soon as they see it. And it’s a travisty, really. This book is told from Clay Jensen’s point of view. True, you get a female voice through Hannah’s tapes but the action plays out based on a male perspecive. The book could have major crossover appeal if only guys weren’t so visual.
That aside, this is a great novel. What makes it so strong is that nothing too tragic happens to Hannah. The events and people she outlines as having led her to her final decision of suicide are seemingly normal teenage slights. The problem being…teenagers can be cruel. It’s violations caused by friends and the rumors based in untruths piling up over the course of years that become Hannah’s crushing weight. It’s enough to make anyone look back over their high school experience and wonder if they ever saw people clearly…not just through the lens of accepted gossip.
Another thing I love about this book is that it’s interactive. Readers can go to Asher’s site (http://www.thirteenreasonswhy.com) and listen to Hannah’s Tapes or even visit her Blog. If you think it’s a creepy/devastating prospect to read about Clay uncovering the reasons in the tapes…try listening to a real voice reading them. It adds an extra layer of realism that will not only drive the emotion of the story home, but remind readers that this story could be true. This book is timely in it’s subject given the recent press of teenage suicides caused by all too common bullying. The artistry of the book is that Hannah’s bullying is not extreme. She wasn’t ostracized or humiliated in a public place. Asher manages to restrain himself from employing all too common YA theatrics and drama. Instead, in real time with Clay the reader will learn how all of our actions and even our inaction can privately wound another person.
My one problem with the book was the addition of Clay becoming worried about another potential suicide risk within his school. I don’t think the book needed such a literal example of the lesson Clay learns from Hannah. It was a little after-school-special for my taste…but didn’t diminish my love of this book in the slightest. It’s a must read.
Rating: 9/10
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA,LOVE YOU.
[…] boy! Do you know how hard it is to get a guy to pick up a cover like this?!” It’s like 13 Reasons Why all over again. It’s hardest to get boys to read and then we have to stymie a perfectly […]