Thirteen reasons why

by Jay Asher

Paper Book, 2009

Status

Available

Collection

Young adult books

Publication

London : Penguin, 2009.

Description

When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death.

Media reviews

New York Times

Clay Jensen receives a package of tapes in the mail with no return address from one of his classmates Hannah baker who had killed herself two weeks before as he struggles to hear the tapes of Hannah he also follows this map that Hannah had put in his locker a week before she committed Suicide as

clay travels star to star he hears the stories of people who have hurt Hannah. And drove her to kill herself you only hear the tapes if you had something to do with it so if you don't pass the tapes on they will be release to everyone clay listens to the tapes and he fails to see who he can trust person by person clay has some type of incounterment with everyone else on the tapes and trays to help Hannah out with the last tape she couldn't get around to

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User reviews

LibraryThing member cinf0master

After Hannah Baker’s suicide, her classmates receive a box of cassette tapes that expose their darkest secrets and their influence on Baker’s psyche. Throughout the twisting and powerfully dark narrative, Asher reflects one teen’s gradual breakdown, from misunderstandings to missed

connections. The characters, revealed primarily through short recordings, are well developed and authentic. Teens will appreciate the honest discussion about the impact of rumors and the precarious nature of high school social standings. Without glossing over any of the pain of adolescence, this frank tale of betrayal and blackmail will captivate readers just as the cassettes captivate the listening characters.

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LibraryThing member schatzi

I've had this book for a while now, and I've heard nothing but good things about it. And it's Banned Book week, and this book was briefly banned by a high school in my state (Colorado), so it was just a perfect storm of me needing to read this now.

And...I didn't like it.

It's set up as a series of

tapes from a girl named Hannah, who killed herself a few weeks ago (I think?). She has thirteen people whom she blames for her suicide (it's really like only about eleven - one of the guys is mentioned twice, and the other narrator in the story, Clay, is on the tapes but is the perennial "good guy" and therefore not at fault), and she wants each one of them to discover how they contributed to her death. Then, once listening to all of the tapes, they must pass the tapes on to the next person in line - and if someone doesn't, there's another person out there who has a second copy of the tapes, and that person will release them to others.

It seems all very elaborate. And even though the readers "listen" to Hannah tell her story, I never felt like I got to understand WHY she killed herself. I mean, I guess she was depressed? Maybe? She talks about losing joy in her life, but she doesn't really say if there is a concrete reason behind this or if she's having a chemical imbalance or what. I mean, I guess there doesn't NEED to be a concrete reason - I'm bipolar, and I know a lot about depression. Sometimes it just creeps up on you for no known reason. It's a disease, after all, and like other diseases, sometimes its idiopathic. But I kind of felt like there was something going on in the background that she never really addressed.

There's this promise of build up - that by the time that you get to the end, you will see some horrible things and you will totally understand why Hannah killed herself. Except...it didn't really happen that way.

And I really hate that she was blaming others for her suicide. I mean, yes, some people were not nice to her at all. There was bullying, to be sure. But she blamed one girl, for example, for contributing to her suicide because she used Hannah for a ride to a party. I mean, really? Someone using you for a ride somewhere is a fairly common occurrence; welcome to life. She blames someone else because he steals the notes out of her positive comment box. I mean, come on. This is ridiculous.

I've heard so many people say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. When your brain works against you and you can't even trust yourself, I don't really see that as a "temporary problem." And I've been there; I've tried that. And that is why Hannah's suicide just doesn't seem realistic to me. It almost felt like she was bored and didn't really know what else to do, so she just decided to kill herself. Like I said, I'm not saying that she needs a "reason," per se - being depressed alone is a good motivator. But I just don't feel like this book did a good job at portraying a suicidal person at all.

Hannah, as a narrator - well, I found her to be pretty unlikable. She sits in a closet, hidden, while one of her former friends, Jessica, is raped at a party. She doesn't try to intervene - she says she "can't." And then she hooks up with the rapist the next week.

I've heard the theory that Hannah was raped by Bryce (the rapist of Jessica, and apparently an all-around sleezeball). I...don't really get that. Hannah gets into the hot tub with him and says, pretty much, that she knew what was going to happen. She just expects Bryce, whom she knows is inebriated (and she is not) to decipher that maybe she doesn't want to have sex with him by her facial expressions. Or something. She never tells him no or tells him to stop. I'm not saying that you can't be raped if you don't say no, but it probably would have helped out in this situation. And when she goes to her guidance counselor to talk about what happened, when the guidance counselor asks her if what happened was illegal (ie rape), she says no, it wasn't. So she doesn't even see herself as being raped.

I think what happened, ultimately, is that she was feeling dead inside and just wanted to feel something. This, I understand. This feels like depression, more than her mood has at any other time in the book. And Bryce was there and so she had sex with him. Maybe she didn't enthusiastically want it, but she never said she didn't, either, even in her own thoughts.

And that ties in with yet another problem I have with Hannah. She acts like everyone should just psychically know that she's thinking about suicide. But what does she do? She writes an anonymous note that she might be thinking about it, maybe. She cuts her hair. The only clear "warning sign" in the whole book was that she gave her bike away to someone. No one was present for all three "signs." And yet she acted like she was screaming from the top of the rooftops that she was about to kill herself and no one cared. Listen, if you want someone to care, maybe you should, oh I don't know, TELL someone? People can't help you if you aren't willing to say, hey, you know what, I really am having bad thoughts and I think I need some help.

Let's be honest. This is high school. Lots of people are caught up in their own dramas, their own stories, their own lives. You can't just throw out a few half-assed "warning signs" and expect people to pick up on them. If you need help - if you WANT help - you need to say something. Something loud. Something unequivocal. Something that says "HELP ME I NEED HELP." Cutting your hair just doesn't, well, cut it.

And that is why I didn't like Hannah as a character. She's so focused on blaming others and getting even beyond the grave that she doesn't invest any of this time or energy into getting the help that she obviously needs. She just expects everyone to figure out the scant clues that something is wrong with her.

And that brings me to Clay, the other narrator in the book. Clay tried to reach out to Hannah at multiple times, but Hannah pushes him away (and acts much like some of the other "horrible" people on her tapes). Clay is wracked with guilt - even though Hannah told him to leave, and he did, he should have just somehow KNOWN that she really meant for him to stay. That...sounds a lot like rape logic, if you think about it. "She told me no, but I KNEW she really wanted it." Oh fuck that.

Clay really has nothing to feel guilty about. He tried to help Hannah, even though he didn't really know much about what was going on with her or how she was feeling. When she told him no and pushed him away, he respected her boundaries. He even kept coming up to her in school and tried to get her to talk to him, but she wouldn't. (Please keep in mind that Hannah blasts someone at school for doing that to her and contributing to her suicide - but apparently, when she does it, it's fine.)

High school is a confusing time. Kids are trying to mature, trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives, and trying to navigate a really confusing adult world while still being, ultimately, only young adults. Plus there are hormones involved, and the brain isn't fully developed. Sure, they do dumb things - sometimes really shitty things. And I am not excusing the rapist - but to make him equal to someone who used Hannah for a ride to a party? COME THE FUCK ON. But most of these shitty things are done with little ill intent. Young adults can be impulsive. They can be mean. That doesn't mean that someone needs to get "revenge" from beyond the grave for petty slights. And kids don't need to spend the rest of their lives wracked with guilt because they might have used someone for a ride to a party or stolen someone's poem or didn't become friends with someone or ended their friendship with someone.

I'd not recommend this book.

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LibraryThing member Spottyblanket

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box 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.

On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why

she decided to end her life.

Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.

This was a book I noticed my little sister reading and grew instantly curious about, granted its not the most uplifting of books (the best books ussually, rarely are), I found myself instantly drawn into it from start to finish.

The style of the writing is dramatic and works on a system of Clay and Hannah's duel narratives, the past and the present. The concept of the tapes itself is twisted genius--Hannah Baker shifts in our eyes from vengeful ice queen, to tragic heroine to desperate victim effotlessly. The chill her thirteen 'chosen ones' must feel from listening to the tapes is felt in ice cold shards instantly and painfully. The tapes are a punishment, an infliction that the people in her life have to bear like a cross--but they also implore these people to learn something and to change.

As dour as this book is, it comes with a filling of justice and hope and thought provoking things to leave you with. There are a lot of these sorts of novels out at the moment, but nothing quite as refreshingly simple as this one. Read and breath it in.

This is Jay Ashers first published novel, and hopefully not his last!

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LibraryThing member HelloAnnie

"I hope you're ready, because I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended. And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why." (p.6)

The book starts off with a simple premise- Hannah Baker has killed herself and has left behind a suicide note

in the form of thirteen cassette tapes to be listened to by each of the people that affected her life and her decision to end it.Already this book starts off very differently from most other novels- this is the beginning of the book and we already know the outcome. But you want to keep reading more. So you do. There are so many questions- what does Clay (the narrator who is taking us on this journey of Hannah's, and yes, he is one of the “thirteen reasons why”) have to do with Hannah? Should we trust him or not? And of course, why does Hannah take her own life? Through the tapes and Clay's journey we have some questions answered, some not and even more questions raised. If just one situation had been turned out the slightest bit differently, would Hannah still be here to tell us her own story? This book really does make you think about the path not taken and how we are all pieces of each other’s lives in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine.

Thirteen Reasons Why is a great example of a teen book that captures that voice and spirit of being a teen. It reads like a teenager wrote this book. Not only that, but Asher does a phenomenal job of writing both the male and female voice. Not since Blake Nelson has a male author written such a true female character and authentic voice. Reading this book, you really feel like you are in the story. You could even be one of those thirteen reasons. Because you feel what Clay feels, you feel what Hannah feels and you want so desperately to reach in and grab her before it is too late. You will think about this book long after you put it down. This is a must read for teens and their parents alike.

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LibraryThing member SamMusher

I understand why teens adore this book -- it's suspenseful and full of sordid high school drama. I also give it a lot of credit for encouraging kids to think about how they treat others, and how small unkindnesses can have chains of unintended consequences. The main character is a boy who, like

many high school boys, didn't participate in his classmates' casual misogyny ("hot or not" lists and the like) but stood by while it happened and even thought it was a little funny. Watching Clay shift his perspective on that behavior is worthwhile.

But oh lordy is it overwritten, full of the kind of short incomplete sentences that redundantly beat you over the head with drama:

"Stupid? Yes. But did it make sense? Yes... at the time.

You should've called the cops, Hannah. It might have stopped this snowball from picking up speed. The one you keep talking about.

The one that ran over all of us."

Also, I never bought that Hannah was suicidal. I understand that depression doesn't need and rarely has an objective cause, so a series of events that seem petty from the outside can build to something serious. I just never believed that Hannah was experiencing that seriousness. She seemed in despair about her classmates being jerks, but I didn't buy the path from that to no longer feeling able to participate in life. I want to be clear: it's not that I don't think that path is possible, just that the writing of this book didn't work for me.

The ultimate message ended up feeling like, "Suicidal people are going to make whatever decision they make and there isn't much you can do about it even if you try." Clay and others tried and failed, because Hannah shut them out and refused to accept help. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intended message, but that's how it came across to me.

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LibraryThing member bibliophile.brouhaha

I really wanted to love this story, but I ended up simply appreciating it a great deal. I really loved the originality of the premise of this book. A voice from beyond the grave pulling people’s strings is a great way to structure a plot, and making that voice belong to a teenage girl who

recently committed suicide made it poignant and heartbreaking.

It also made me REALLY freaking angry. For a few different reasons.

First of all, people failed Hannah, no doubt about it. She deserved better, much better. I certainly can see how some of the people on her list ought to shoulder some of the guilt for her plight at school. Hannah was ignored and used by mean girls, made a public object of sexual harassment (that boiled my blood), and apparently, was the victim of false rumors that are incredibly damaging to an adolescent girl. Hell, in one case especially, the kid was the lowest of the low, and he ought to have been properly and publicly beaten for the heinous and illegal things he did. I can see why Hannah was so angry about why few really reached out to her. That last one. . . man, I couldn’t believe it! Why, why, why did he not go straight to the principal or her parents?

However, I have to be honest - I found the fact that Hannah, through all her pain and desperation to end it all, found the time to plan and execute a macabre tour of the way people let her down and hurt her to be really, really sickening. I had a lot of anger towards Hannah right from the start: the teasing comments to the tapes’ recipients, the carefully planned map, the orderly and methodical way of going through her list of people and telling their parts in her story? Such things take time and planning. To me, it made Hannah’s death feel more like revenge rather than a heartbreaking out from her pain. In the beginning, she initially seemd to take pleasure in the shock and horror she knew she was giving the tapes' recipients. This set the tone before I heard the 'whys', and for me, overshadowed the actual pain people put her through and made her death feel like a well-constructed component in a plan to have the last, sick laugh. It made me so angry!

I am not trying to make light of the way Hannah was used and treated by others. It’s heartbreaking for anyone to feel like they are on the outside, but it’s especially hard to go through that in high school. I honestly did feel for Hannah, and I actually cried while reading the book (and even while writing this review). I understand how the little things really can add up to the snowball effect. I usually have a great amount of heartfelt emotion for people who go through depression (see my review on Revolution), but I found it hard to do with Hannah since she seemed hell bent on making people feel guilty for her choice to end her life. Did everyone on that tape deserve blame for what she did? Nope, not all of them, and you’ll never convince me otherwise. Most of them should have to answer to someone for the things they did, and sometimes, that 'someone' definitely was Hannah. But in some of the cases, that person was not Hannah. However, because she decided to point the finger. . . some of them now have a ghost unfairly following them for the rest of their lives.

In terms of the writing, it’s a well-written book by a first-time novelist. I had a few instances of questioning the characters’ decisions and how the plot played out. However, each voice is strong and distinct. I really love that we heard personally from Hannah. In all fairness, she really called out people on some things she had a perfect right to be upset about (I just wish she had been that articulate with them while she was still living). There were a few times I wished she could have gone on uninterrupted by Clay’s thoughts and reactions, but generally, his reactions gave a very real feeling of how the living deal with suicide, and the Hannah/Clay interaction provided genuine emotion, a solid substitution for dialogue and good pacing. Clay's quick turnaround surprised me at the end, but I loved his character My sole complaint with Clay is that it felt like he got an ‘easy out’ with Hannah’s tapes. I think he could have been put to better use to get the point across if he had failed Hannah in some way, some actual way, rather than being the right guy who came along too late. That part still makes me so angry – there was proof right in front of her that she had possibilities in her life, and the realization of it was so powerful that it made her cry. Yet, she still decided to end it.

Maybe that’s the true point of this book. I’ve seen so many reviews praising it for its portrayal of suicidal teens and how we have to reach out to them, how it’s a cautionary tale that what we do has a very real affect on others. That’s a point that no one can argue with. Everyone belongs to a community, and in communities, we are responsible for the well-being of others, and people do deserve to be treated with kindness. However, in the end, even Hannah knew that there could be second chances, and she decided not to take them. Her death didn’t make sense. It didn’t serve any purpose, it did no good, and from the sound of the tapes, she didn’t go looking for peace; she went angry and wanted others to know about it. So, I think the other message here is when things like this happen, you have to take what lessons you can from them and resolve to not let another person go down that lonely path to nowhere, if you can.

In the end, I recommend this book. It’s on an important subject, it’s well-written and really makes you think about how your little actions that you think are insignificant or a good laugh can really affect and hurt others. Maybe my reaction is simply too personal. I just have a lot of anger towards Hannah after reading this (and other characters, as well). Maybe I’m supposed to. I don't mean to for my review to seem like I blame her for wanting a way out of her pain - I don't. I have a great amount of compassion for her, and my heart aches for that girl inside who just wanted not to be judged, to receive kindness, and to have a good friend or two. It's the way she treated her own death like it was the last laugh on others that had me so angry. I feel so badly for people contemplating suicide, but please, believe me – you are loved, you are wanted here on this earth, and your death would bring far more pain than peace.

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LibraryThing member TheTreeReader

I have been wanting to read Thirteen Reasons Why for so long. I think I added it to my wish list before it even came out. I have no idea why it has taken me so long to pick it up. It might be the fact that even though I enjoy Young Adult contemporary, it is probably my least favorite genre. Perhaps

it’s just a case of so many books, so little time. All I do know is that I am glad that I found it at Goodwill and decided to finally pick it up.

Going into it I didn’t know what to expect. I knew what it was about and it sounded like something I might like, but I don’t think I expected to get enjoy it as much as I did. I was completely sucked in and I didn’t want to put it down. I’m not sure why I was surprised but I was. This was such a great read.

Even though I didn’t cry while reading this, my emotions were all over the place. There were times I was smiling and laughing. There were times that I felt sad and even angry. I just wanted to hop into the book, go back in time, and be friends with Hannah. I had a hard time with bully and rumors when I was in school. I was incredibly depressed and while I was reading this book I felt like Hannah and I would have really gotten along. Maybe if we were friends we both would have made it through high school (I was kicked out because of the rumors and just couldn’t bring myself to go to another school in a different town).

I do understand why a lot of people don’t like this book. Some people think that it’s dangerous and glamorize suicide. Or they think that Jay Asher just doesn’t understand depression and Hannahs reasons were dumb. Like I said before, I dealt with both bullying and horrible rumors, and if you have to get pushed around all day at school, if you have to deal with people calling you names, acting weird around you, laughing at you, staring at you and whispering, you end up feeling completely worthless. Every comment, every rumor, every look, they all add up. They just keep piling up on you until you are buried and you feel like suicide is your only option. You don’t want to deal with the whispers, looks and shoves. You just want to escape. You want out. Hannah probably already had depression, and every comment, rumor, whisper, stare, all of it, added up. I’m not saying that what other people said is wrong, they just had a different experience. Maybe they are stronger and what people say and do doesn’t hurt them as much. I can admit that I am sensitive, you combine that with my anxiety and depression and you are left with someone who could understand where Hannah was coming from. If you didn’t that’s fine. We don’t all have to agree. I just hope that if you heard or read negative reviews that you still give this book a chance. Give it a read for yourself. You might hate it, or you might love it.

This book was so great and I’m glad that I now own it and have read it. I can’t wait to pick up more by Jay Asher in the future.

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LibraryThing member dgoo

Hmmm. I almost didn't finish this book, but was far enough along I did. It just didn't grip me. I felt like Hannah had some annoying and careless things happen to her, but I feel like she was looking for things to be uniquely insulted or slighted by, like she was the only one these sorts of things

happened to and people were out to get her. Not in a paranoid way but like she wanted drama or attention that she wasn't getting. I just don't think her troubles were conveyed clearly enough by the author or maybe his point was that for some people it takes much less than others to push them over the edge. I don't know, I just didn't get the sense that she was actually that sad or numb and it didn't make sense to me that she killed herself. It seemed like that was the author had set her out to do but didn't get her there in a way that made much "sense" for someone who commits suicide.

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LibraryThing member ACleveland

definitely not the best book that i have ever read.
this girl(name forgotten) made thirteen tapes about why she killed herself and sent them to thirteen people to blame it on them. saying that they had some part of her death. why she decided to kill herself.
i wanted to hurry up and get to the end of

the book to find a truly good reason..but in reality...it was just high school that killed her. every single bad thing that happened to her seemed like the worst thing in the world to her.
what happened to her is what happens to people all of the time and to just about everyone.
the book was nothing special.

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LibraryThing member Michelle20

Thirteen Reasons Why was an amazing book about a young girl in high school committing suicide. Although i knew it was going to be a very sad and devastating book, i couldn't get enough of it. The fact that Hannah Baker left tapes for the people that were involved in the reasons for what she did,

made the book so much more interesting then just a book about a girl who died. Jay Asher did an amazing job at keeping me interested in the book by putting little hints through the story and keeping some things a mystery for the readers to think about and come up with a resolution on their own. All and all, i enjoyed this book so much i read it twice.

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LibraryThing member ark76

This powerful book on teen suicide will stay in your mind forever. It deals with some difficult that teens face including dating, reputations, drinking, drug use and sex. It is important to be aware that these topics are discussed if recommending to a student or child that may not be mature enough

for the topics. However, I recommend that all students entering high school and their parents read this book. The reader will be left with a deep understanding of the effects both of your actions and inactions. An encounter that may seem inconsequential to one person may have a major effect on someone due to the cumulative effect. Nothing we do is in isolation and we are all responsible for our actions. Just as the characters in this book don't want to listen to the tapes that are left behind detailing the reasons for a teenager's suicide, but are compelled to keep listening, so too are we compelled to read on to find the difficult truth that could cause a youngster to end her life.

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LibraryThing member Whisper1

A heartbreaking story of a young woman who commits suicide and then sends cassette tapes to fellow classmates whom she believes were responsible for her emotional breakdown.

A must read for teachers who deal with teen aged children. There were signs along the way and subtle cries for help, the

teachers simply didn't pick up on it or chose to ignore her comments and behavior.

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LibraryThing member ut.tecum.loquerer

I liked this book, but it was hard to read. Listening to this girl explain why she has killed herself is almost heart-wrenching. And if you know anyone who has committed suicide (or attempted), it will probably take you right back to that time. The depiction of high school is one of the truest I've

ever read, and the author conveys well a feeling of isolation.

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LibraryThing member breadnbutter

I have a couple issues with this book. Firstly, the supposed reasons Hannah has for killing herself....ridiculous. Wow, I was expecting something a bit more...deep or traumatizing. The two most affecting stories she had to tell, (and I truly HATE to say this) she really got into them herself,

almost as if she knew what was going to happen. If you read it, I think you would see what I am referring to. Hannah really wasn't even likable either because of what she was doing to the people who really hadn't done anything wrong to her (Clay and Tony). As I was reading it I could definitely see that this is what a grown man felt a teenage girl would apparently kill herself over. I understand the need to warn kids about the pressures of high school and harm of bullying or creating rumors, but this particular instance was not really an enjoyable piece of writing. And like I said before, that is the reason for reading fiction books.

Secondly, the simultaneous narration of Clay and Hannah was hard to follow. I would say I read at a fairly moderate pace and since every other sentence was another narrator, I became confused quite easily and had to go back and reread to make sure I knew what was happening with each one of them. I understand the necessity for it and I can't say that it was done poorly, but it wasn't something I personally enjoyed.

I don't think this book would really help anyone in anyway if that was an underlying goal. It is just another piece of fluff in a genre that already has too much.

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LibraryThing member KellyBlackwell

"Thirteen Reasons Why" is one of those books that drew me in from the back cover. I really thought the premise was intriguing. It was a compelling but difficult read emotionally. I kept hoping that somehow things would change for Hannah, a girl who I could so easily relate to. I know many girls who

have been in Hannah's shoes. I had been there. I think many teenagers can relate to the pain that Hannah went through. I also think that many have probably added a little salt into some wounds here and there. I see this as a story that gives the readers an opportunity to see how seemingly simple happenings can work together for good or not so good.

Seeing how each incident brought Hannah closer to the choice she made is something that I think can be a helpful read for a teen, but more so if shared with an adult who is willing to talk about the issues that come up. I think there are many points that should be discussed as well as alternatives to each reaction and to each action. Also it is important to note that anyone can take their life. No one is immune to stings and barbs.

I definitely got a lot out of this book and though long out of high school, am very glad I read it. This is a book that could really go a long way. I wildly recommend it!

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LibraryThing member lookingforpenguins

Hannah is dead at the tender age of 16. Tragically, she took her own life. But she's left something behind: a box of thirteen audio tapes that she hopes will explain the reasons she chose to kill herself.

Thirteen Reasons Why is Jay Asher's debut novel that deals with some powerful subject matter:

teen suicide. I was prepared for preachy. I was prepared for condescension. But I wasn't prepared for what I actually read, which turned out to be a brutally honest exploration of both the victim and those left behind (he invalidates neither) wondering why and how such a thing could have happened.

Author Jay Asher has a rare, special touch with his readers. He actually understands that most mysterious and elusive of creatures: the teenager. Hannah's reasons for killing herself would appear, to most adults, inconsequential. But Asher understands that her reasons are very, very real to a teenager and he treats them with the seriousness they deserve. Likewise, he is able to convey the angst of her classmates who are left feeling confused, guilty and vulnerable while they try to make sense of the tragedy.

And yet Asher is still able to subtly provide answers and lessons, including our moral responsibilities to our fellow human beings, the subtle signs of suicide and how we unknowingly exacerbate it.

Perhaps the most powerful scene in the novel revolves around Hannah's last effort to reach out for help from her high school guidance counselor. Asher brilliantly depicts a counselor who wants so badly to help Hannah, but simply cannot because of his inability to see the problem through the eyes of a teenage girl.

There is, as it turns out, no one person to blame for a tragedy like this. Anyone could have stopped it along the way, but tragically no one did.

Very highly recommended for both teens and adults. If you have a teen in mind for this book, I would recommend that you (or better yet, their parents) read it first to ensure that the seriousness of the subject matter is, in your view, appropriate for them.

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LibraryThing member acg233

Title: Thirteen Reasons Why
Author: Jay Asher
Genre: YA

Where I got it: ODLC (the e-book library)

One sentence: Clay Jensen finds cassette tapes recorded by his classmate and crush, Hannah Baker, who committed suicide weeks earlier, and he discovers that he is part of the thirteen reasons why she

killed herself.

Themes: Suicide, guilt, lies, truth, judgment, teenage angst

Main character: I really loved Clay. He seemed down-to-earth, and though he is touted in school as the “perfect guy”, I found that his character was much more multi-faceted than that. His emotions were easy to connect with and believable.

Secondary characters: As much as I liked Clay’s character, it was the character of Hannah that really struck me and raised such mixed feelings. As much as I dislike the idea of suicide and have negative emotions toward someone who would put themselves and their family through such a painful experience, I found that I didn’t hate Hannah. I understood and connected with her, even if I didn’t agree with her ideas, and that really made her decisions and actions hit home for me.

Writing style: The alternating narration between the cassette tape playing and what Clay is doing at the same time threw me for a loop at first, but I grew to really appreciate the parallels between Clay and Hannah and their unique emotions

Plot: The plot truly intrigued me from the beginning, the idea of receiving cassette tapes from a girl who had just committed suicide. I thought it was suspenseful, emotional and kept me thoroughly entertained as there were few dull moments.

Best scene: The thirteenth reason kept me on the edge of my seat, especially using a twist on what we had come to expect.

Positives: Characters, entertaining and suspenseful plot, writing

Negatives: There were some ideas that Hannah held that I didn’t agree with, but they really worked to characterize her, so I suppose that this negative is almost a positive.

Ending: Loved it. It drew everything to a close in a bittersweet moment that had me jumping.

Verdict: A fascinating and heart-wrenching read that reverberates in the reader.

Rating: 9.0 / 10

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LibraryThing member jessecreations

It’s a book about a kid named Clay, who comes home to find a box of cassette tapes on his doorstep. As he begins to listen to the tapes, he hears the voice of Hannah Baker, a classmate who recently committed suicide. The tapes are her lengthy suicide notes, left behind to explain to 13 people how

they may have helped to lead her to suicide. A heavy topic, to be sure, but one I feel all teenagers should read. Here are seven reasons why I feel this way:

1. Lots of teens contemplate suicide. This book doesn’t glamorize it; it makes it seem real, final, and permanent. I think that’s important for kids to see.
2. Teenagers’ lives are full of drama, most of it self-created. This book shows what happens when you let that drama become your life.
3. Everyone has a friend who needs help. How many of us reach out to that friend, and how many of us ignore the cry for help? This book explores what happens when you do both.
4. In high school, reputations are made and broken every day. This book explores the repercussions of our actions, and how what we do can affect someone else deeply.
5. The book is well-written; teens need to read something that is both compelling and smart.
6. Despite the length of the book (304 pages), I read it in one day. Teenagers, with their short attention spans, need a book that won’t let go.
7. Kids need to be kinder to one another; maybe, just maybe, this book will show them thirteen reasons why.

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LibraryThing member bookwormteri

I felt like this book was really trying to make a statement about watching our actions because we affect those around us and that suicide is an awful thing. I agree with both of those statements wholeheartedly, but I diagree that the book pulled off saying anything important in this regard.

All this

book accomplished was to remind me how utterly self absorbed people can be. It seemed as if Hannah forgot or didn't realize that every action a person may make does not come from a place of malice. Not every action or reaction is based upon the decision to make her life miserable. This boy made a pass (although a little forceful) and I rejected him, and now he won't date me....he is a seventeen year old boy, not a thirty year old man....grrrrrr....People make mistakes, or react poorly, especially as teenagers while we are learning what appropriate responses should be. She is a paranoid narcissist, another way to say that is to say....teenager.

That being said, suicide should not be an option. If you have feelings of hopelessness or wanting to hurt yourself, please talk to someone that you respect and get help.

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LibraryThing member booktherapy

I don't really know my feelings on this book. It was strange. I felt sick reading it and listening to the girl's story. It was an easy read and flowed quickly. I just had strange and difficult emotions.

LibraryThing member ErisofDiscord

This book is a difficult book to appreciate while reading it. It was only when I wasn't trudging through self-pitying sentence after whining sentence that I can try to understand and sympathize with what the author’s message is. It took a lot of thinking and discussions with my mom, but I think I

can feel sorry for the main character and what she did with her life. It wasn't easy, though, and this book has bothered me ever since I started reading it.

Thirteen Reasons Why is narrated dually, and each narrator takes turns telling the story, sometimes sentences or even words apart. The main narrator and the one who drives the events of the story is Hannah Baker, a girl who has committed suicide and has sent a series of cassette tapes to the people that she blamed for driving her to kill herself. Clay is the other narrator, and he is one of the thirteen people who received the tapes. As Hannah tells her story and reveals the people who she was hurt by, Clay will have to reconcile with her death and deal with the pain of being one of the people on Hannah’s list.

I am torn about the character of Hannah Baker. My knee-jerk reaction is to be disgusted and repelled by her, and I don’t find her at all likable. Every sentence that I read was painful and I reached several points while reading when I just wanted to yell at her. Some of her reasons were understandable and heartbreaking, but most of them were trivial, and I couldn’t get past the fact that she was implicating teenagers who didn’t deserve it. She blamed others for their mistakes and faults, but she didn’t look at the faults within herself. Hannah did not take proper precautions and a lot of the things that happened to her could’ve been avoided, had she used common sense. I understand that sometimes teenagers don’t use common sense and we occasionally make mistakes, but I expected more from a heroine who calmly, almost happily commits a huge amount of time to laying out the reasons why she is (without any doubts in her mind) going to commit suicide. It wasn't some spur-of-the-moment decision. She put a great deal of effort and thought into her motivation. You would think that she would’ve put that same effort into protecting herself from horny teenaged boys and backstabbing friends.

Hannah is also very unlikable because of the way she treated Clay. In the end, she admits that he is the only one who did not deserve to be on the tapes, and that he only showed her kindness. Clay was a wonderful guy, and she made him agonize about why his name was on the list as he listened to her blame people for her suicide. Besides Clay there were many other teenagers and one adult on her list who were not deserving of her anger, such as a former friend who was responsible for her receiving the Hottest Ass award, or a girl who asked for a ride to a party and then meandered away when they both got there. Those reasons didn’t make a lot of sense to me.

I’ve ranted for a good couple of paragraphs about why I dislike Hannah, but I mentioned at the beginning of this review about how I was torn about the book. I’m torn in that I wonder if Hannah being so unlikable was the point of the book. That maybe some of her thoughts were supposed to be representative of what a suicidal or depressed teenaged girl might be thinking, and in that respect the book does it rather well. I suppose that this book suggests that people who commit suicide are selfish and weak. Is that true? I don’t know, but that is how the character of Hannah came across to me.

This book has definitely gotten me thinking, but I don’t think it’s about what the author intended. Hannah wanted the people on her list to do no harm. Perhaps that is why she sent the tapes out – to help them to learn and become better people. She should’ve looked at herself first, though, especially since she caused the greatest hurt to her family (who are barely mentioned in the book) and to all the people who knew her. Suicide hurts.

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LibraryThing member Katharine_Hanson

Meh, I really didn't care about Hannah that much. For the first half of the book I really disliked her, she's whiny and melodramatic about everything.
I can think of things that happened to me in high school that were of a similar nature to those that happened to Hannah and yeah at the time you're a

teenage bundle of emotions, but everyone is going through basically the same thing and you just get on with it. If Asher had made more of an effort to convey that she was suffering from depression or something, maybe she would have been a more sympathetic character. But I just got the sense that she was self centered and selfish, particularly because she makes these tapes and forces people to listen to her story after she's dead - something that seems really unfair to me. If anyone deserved some form of comeuppance in the book it would be Bryce (I won't say what he did, but it was something really terrible) who should have been put in jail. But otherwise, everyone else was just a regular teenager doing regular teenager stuff and Hannah makes everyone feel awful about it. The message beind the book is important, suicide is definitely a topic that it is important to address and understand - I just don't think this book pulled off what it was trying to very well.

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LibraryThing member CaroTheLibrarian

PLUS -
* Interesting concept - a teenage girl who has committed suicide leaves a series of recorded messages for the people she feels contributed to her unjappiness.
* A very valid overall message: that everything you say or do to other people has an effect on them, even if you think it is

insignificant.

MINUS -
* I found it a bit difficult to keep track of who was narrating. We are partly listening to Hannahs tapes, and partly listening to Clay, one of the recipients.
*Hannah didn't seem like a particularly sympathetic character, and her reasons for taking her own life seemed to be shallow - people spreading rumours, being misunderstood. Perhaps this is me looking at things from a too-adult point of views. I'm sure many of the Young Adults I work with would identify with Hannah and rate this as a good read.

OVERALL -
Disappointing. Could have been great, but instead I found the whole thing rather pedestrian in style, and worry a little that it brushes over the impact of suicide, which can't be a good thing in a book for teenagers. Yes, Hannah's peers are shocked, but what about her parents and those who truly loved her.

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LibraryThing member missnix

Spine-tingling and fantastic. Greatly written and amazing. Upsetting. About a boy who is one of 13 people why this girl committed suicide.
This is a book about two people who only ever really cross paths in life for a short time. One is a girl by the name of Hannah and the other is a boy by the name

of Clay. Hannah and Clay are both in the same High School, but Hannah has committed suicide. No one really knows why she did it, but Clay is about to find out. Before Hannah died, she made audio tapes that explained her reasons, and each person that she attributed a little bit of the blame to must hear her reasons and pass them along to the next person on the tapes. We follow Clay through town, through his memories and through Hannah's tapes, learning the thirteen reasons she decided to give up on life, and those people around her that made those reasons so easy to accept(Jadesbooks).You read the book as Clay - listening to his feelings.
Amazingly written as well as following a fabulous story-line. The book isn't just interesting, it's readable and at a good level of ability : not too easy but not extremely difficult.

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LibraryThing member KarenLeeField

OK, let me start by saying I read this book because I've been affected by suicide. It's a grim, depressing subject. However, I am a firm believer that we have to raise suicide awareness. And let me also say that I've had a hard time writing a review for this book.

Part of me feels that in the wrong

hands, this book would guide a vulnerable mind in the wrong direction. The book screams take your own life but point the finger at all the terrible people in your life first. How is that helpful? And when she finally turns to an authority figure, she doesn't get help. Although I know some people don't "hear" what's being said, this was a teacher who should be trained for this type of thing. How is that offering options or raising awareness?

The other part of me recognises that the book is trying to say that it's usually not one big thing that pushes someone to suicide but many things that, together and over time, make you feel numb and lost. Which in turn, takes aware the feeling that there are other options. And we mustn't overlook the other lesson to be learned here; consequences. We must be aware that what we say and do to others has consequences. A joke is only a joke if all parties know it's a joke. Ultimately, we are all in charge of our own decision making and must live with the consequences.

And yet another part of me is whispering that the book isn't meant to focus on Hannah's suicide, it was meant to focus on the reason she is telling these people what their part in her decision was; and it was her hope that knowing this reason would change the person's outlook on life and the way they interact with others. In other words, make them a better person. The ending of the book proves that at least one person did see the error of their ways and change.

In all honesty, I didn't mind the book whilst reading it, but now I have to think about how the book would be received by someone with suicidal thoughts, and I must admit that worries me. I usually talk about character building, plot lines and the author's style of writing when writing reviews, but on this occasion none of that seems relevant.

It's a well written book, but my gut tells me that the wrong message has taken the highlighted position, which is a shame.

I originally gave this book 4 out of 5 stars, but having written this review and gotten my head around what the book delivered, I feel I have to lower that rating to 3 out of 5 stars.

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