Wonderful debut novel, strongly written with perceptive content. Highly recommended to all readers

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	• Thirteen Reasons Why Jay Asher Razorbill, 2007 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 68 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Amazing

Wow. What a great book. Sad, but I didn't cry. It was more like the kind of sad where you can't cry. The kind of sad where you're partially in shock, like you just can't believe it even while you can.

Clay comes home from school one day to find a mysterious package waiting on the porch for him. He opens it, and inside are seven audiotapes, each side numbered. He places Cassette 1: Side A into the tape player and hears a voice he never thought to hear again: that of Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush, who committed suicide two weeks before. Hannah has thirteen reasons-thirteen people who affected her-why she killed herself. The tapes are making the rounds, heading to those people. Clay is one of them, and if he listens to the tapes, he'll learn why.

There's like nothing to say about this book other than that you should read it. I didn't want to stop reading it. I loved the way that it went back and forth between Hannah and Clay: Hannah tell her story, Clay telling his and adding his comments to Hannah's story. I loved how this book was more about the characters, more like short stories that were all connected. There was really no plot. It's about Hannah's struggle with herself and the people around her, but we already know that she kills herself. Now we just have to find out why.

This is definitely one of those books that affects you, the reader. It really changes your perspective about people and yourself. It really shows how even the smallest action, one that seems harmless, can be driving someone else to consider killing themselves. It's about learning to live with yourself, learning to live with your mistakes, seeing that you could have made a different choice but choose not to. And that there may not be any going back. You just have to face it.

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A real page turner!!

I could not put the book down because I needed to know what the next step would be. My heart went out to, not only the main character but to all of the people recieving the tapes!! A must, must read!!!

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Wonderful debut novel, strongly written with perceptive content. Highly recommended to all readers

Clay Jensen opens a package to discover several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, a classmate that committed suicide two weeks earlier. The thirteen sides of the tapes describe the snowball effect of rumors and high school life that lead Hannah to kill herself--and one of the sides is addressed to Clay. The interweaving narratives of Hannah's recording and Clay's listening sometimes flows into a confusing muddle, but Thirteen Reasons Why has an ingenious premise which intrigues the reader--and even better, it contains perceptive, intelligent content. This is a captivating and surprisingly sensitive book, and I recommend it.

Asher writes a good book: the premise is ingenious, the characters are realistic, and the narrative is compelling and skillful (if sometimes confusing). Clay doesn't know why Hannah killed herself or why she cites him as one of the causes of her death, so the book's very premise captures the reader and holds him in suspense until the end. (When they finally came, I found the answers to these questions a bit anticlimactic--but I still appreciate the journey to reach them.) Hannah and Clay, as well as the other teenagers that populate the book, are wonderfully realistic--sometimes this traps them in annoying teen behaviors, but it also makes them compelling and sympathetic. Asher interweaves Hannah's tapes with Clay's listening--it can be easy to miss the switch, and going back to reread a few paragraphs breaks up the flow of the book, but on the whole this is a wonderful narrative choice which keeps suspense high and explores the two characters and their relationship in great depth.

Asher writes well, but perhaps even better than his writing is his content. Difficult subjects are old fair in young adult novels, but it is rare to see them handled so well as they are here. Asher does not include taboo subject on a whim or for shock value alone; rather, he is aware of their impact and treats them with respect. Rumors about promiscuity begin the snowball effect that leads to Hannah's suicide, and it is at once refreshing and terrifying to see the impact of sexual activity, social norms, and high school politics on these teens. But Hannah's thirteen reasons do not excuse her from responsibility for her death, and the impact of her suicide lingers in Clay and in the community. The book's message is that actions have consequences--and we all have some control over those consequences. It's a hopeful message but it's terrifying too, and Asher delivers it with aplomb.

For whatever reason, Thirteen Reasons Why didn't blow me away, but I greatly enjoyed it nonetheless. Perhaps the teen voice was too accurate; certainly the constant switches in narration slowed down my reading. I also believe that the secrets--Hannah's final reasons and her connection to Clay--quite live up to all the suspense that proceeds them; I'd like to see more of an adult influence on the characters, and the ending is abrupt. But these quibbles are just that: though imperfections, they don't detract from the book as whole. This is a wonderful debut novel: strongly written, captivating, and intelligent, with unusually perceptive content. It captured and impressed me, and I'm glad to have read it. I highly recommend it--to readers of all ages, although I think it will mean most to high schoolers.

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great book!

i loved it! it was very cleverly written and i could not stop reading the book until i finished it.

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