Razorbill

Thirteen Reasons Why

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1217100Thirteen Reasons Why
by Jay Asher
304 p. Razorbill. January 2007.
Gr 7 Up

High school senior Clay Jensen receives a mysterious package in the mail full of 7 cassette tapes.  On the tapes, Clay hears the voice of Hannah Baker, a girl Clay had a crush on and who committed suicide two weeks earlier.  On the side of each tape, Hannah names the thirteen reasons, or rather, the thirteen people, who led her to her decision to take her own life. And those thirteen people? They’re the ones receiving the tapes.  Clay’s pain and self-torment are palpable.  With cutting emotions, Hannah’s story is a tale of despair and suspense intermixed with her story is Clay’s thoughtful and sensitive reactions.  The book is a quick read that will captivate young readers with a powerful message.

The Feels

First off, let’s talk about how eerie and truly haunting this book is. The disembodied voice of a dead girl on tape pointing fingers at the people she feels played a role in her decision to end her own life? Yeah, that’s eerie. I struggled initially with this book, because I found Hannah to be a bit much and some of her reasons seemed a little petty.  But I think it’s important to recognize everyone handles and perceives the struggles in their life differently, and it’s easy to see where Hannah might feel like everything was snowballing out of her control.

And it’s hard not to sympathize with Clay as he struggles to deal with his guilt and the loss of his friend. In fact, all I wanted to do was reach out and give Clay a hug and tell him everything was going to be okay, because he genuinely comes across as nice and good and the kind of friend we all wanted in high school. And he is alone in his suffering.  He can’t talk about the tapes, because then he’d be revealing his role and the role of the 12 other people in Hannah’s suicide.

tumblr_inline_miwz09cf4u1qz4rgpBut ultimately, the tapes change Clay and the way he understands and connects with people. Asher does a great job of stressing the importance of thinking about how we interact with others, because we don’t always know how they’re going to take it or even what else is going on in their life.