Book Review: Thirteen Reasons Why

Book Title: Thirteen Reasons Why

Author: Jay Asher

Pages: 288

Genre: Young adult fiction

Publisher: Pengiun

Originally published: 18 October 2007

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars.

Synopsis:

"You can't stop the future."

"You can't rewind the past."

"The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play."

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush, who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah's recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

My Review:

The book is complex and thought-provoking.

A tragic story with an important message.

I have heard amazing things about "Thirteen Reasons Why" from my friends that's why it was on my "Must Read" list.

I thought I would love this book but unfortunately I was a little disappointed.

Did I like the story: Yes.

Did it move me: No.

The main character Clay Jensen's high school crush Hannah Baker commits suicide. Before her death, she recorded several audiotapes in which she explained 13 reasons why she killed herself. These cassettes are her suicide notes in which she blames 13 people for her death. Now the audiotapes are being circulating around these 13 individuals that have played a role in Hannah's miserable suicide. And Clay Jensen is one of them. Clay is freaked out. He can’t imagine why his name would be on the tapes.

The Good:

• 1. The author chose a sensitive and controversial topic, suicide which most of the people hesitate to talk about. Especially teen suicide is a crucial subject.
• 2. It covers serious problems that young people today have to deal with, issues like rape, sexual abuse, stalking, bullying, depression, peer pressure. Hannah was upset because people objectified her and spread rumors about her. This had led her to be hopeless.
• 3. I love the format. I like how uniquely the book was written. We follow Clay's thoughts and actions at the same time we follow Hannah's voice through the tapes as she told her story. Clay's thought interlocking with Hannah's dialogues. The present from Clay's perspective and the past from Hannah's perspective.
• 4. The story held my interest. I was immediately drawn in and wanted to uncover Hannah’s secrets. It had my full attention till the very last page. The urge to stick around till the end was huge.
• 5. I love the "Skye Miller" part at the ending. It gave me hope. Skye Miller is Clay's middle school crush. Over the past few years, she has isolated herself from the world. Hannah's story taught Clay that if you spot the signs, don't turn your back. If someone is slipping away, get them to talk, before it's too late.

The Bad:

• 1. Hannah's 13 reasons for killing herself don't seem convincing to me. Most of them felt immature. Her reasons don't make much of a sense.
• 2. She felt over-dramatic at times. Most of the situation Hannah faced was nothing beyond what an average teenager faces. In fact, there are people who have gone through a lot worse than her like drugs, gang rape, abortion, and didn't choose to give up on life.
• 3. Instead of blaming other people. She should have confronted them when she was alive. I know what happened to her was wrong. But suicide isn't the answer.
• 4. Hannah was guilt tripping them. It's incredibly selfish of her to tell other people that it's their fault she killed herself. And leave them feeling guilty about it for the rest of their lives because they weren't nice to a girl back in their teen years.
• 5. I kept waiting for the story to go beyond the typical high school drama, but it did not.
• 6. Hannah witnessed a rape and she could have easily stopped it but she didn't. She only watched and did nothing. After this, I completely lost my sympathy for her.
• 7. Majority of the people on her list didn't do anything horrible to her. I think it wasn't fair to Clay, Tony, Jessica and Mr. Porter to listen to those cruel tapes from a dead girl. In fact I felt so bad for Jessica after the rape scene.
• 8. There's a possibility that one of these individuals commit suicide since they feel so remorseful about the part they played in Hannah's death.

This is one of those books that leaves you in a depressed phase for a few minutes after you finish reading it. Hannah was a broken person who gave up on herself. When she sends signals that she is about to kill herself, students and staff fail to do much about it. She simply let her life go without fighting for it.

All she had to do was to try hard enough to make herself feel better. She could have taken back the control over her life.

In my opinion, you have to deal with your problems, instead of whining and blaming them on others.

From the book I understood how from each little insult, rumor and gossip in high school, could add up to the anger and craving for striking back.

Furthermore, I couldn’t help thinking, things like these happen to everyone. We're all offended and humiliated at a certain point. So why does that lead some people to suicide while makes other strong enough to withstand the criticism.

A Valuable Lesson:

The message is to reach out to those who need our help. It emphasizes the importance of speaking up and not hiding away. When someone starts to fade away, they need help to pull their life back together, or they could become too unhappy and lose the desire to live, like Hannah.

Don't let your opinion about a person stop you from helping them.

We must consider our actions first before doing them because each action can create consequences we might later regret.