Thirteen Reasons Why

Thirteen Reasons Why

by Jay Asher

SYNOPSIS:

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers thirteen 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.
Through Hannah and Clay’s dual narratives, debut author Jay Asher weaves an intricate and heartrending story of confusion and desperation that will deeply affect teen readers.

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“No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people.Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same.”

I don’t know much about suicide, but I guess that a person in that state of mind doesn’t need a really strong reason to take away his/her life.

I believe that the tiniest of the possible reasons you might think about it’s just enough for them, after all it all adds up to the suffering and it is not the last experience that counts, but all of them together. It can be one look, one word, one disappointment, or it can be something major..

But how in the world do you measure someone’s suffering?
When is it “big enough”?
When is it not?
How can you tell what might be a “good reason” to take away your life?

This being said, I felt the same way as many of you.. I felt that Hannah didn’t have such a bad experience, that some people go through more difficult things in life and they keep going, trying to survive… but in the end it’s not about the experience itself, but about the way Hannah felt, about the “snowball effect”… and at some point she just couldn’t take it anymore.

I also think that this book is not about the reasons one might have to take away his/her life, it is not really about Hannah, or the people that think about suicide, but it’s about all the other people.. it’s about you and me, it’s about that someone that could make a person realize that life it’s worth living. It’s about seeing someone struggling and trying to help. It shows you the “signs” and it screams for you to do something, to save someone.

What did Clay do?
What did Mr. Porter do?
What would you do to help Hannah?

There are 3 reasons why I didn’t give this book 5 stars:

1. Clay – I couldn’t feel his pain as much as I wanted, I didn’t feel that he was as attached to Hannah as the author wanted to me to think. At the beginning his lines were too short and they lack of any kind of emotion… the discovering should have been heartbreaking, but I couldn’t feel that.

2. The switching between Hannah and Clay – even though I always knew who was “talking”, sometimes I just lost track of thoughts. Hannah said one thing, but Clay thought about something totally different making me forget what she was just saying… and I felt like he was some kind of noise keeping me from listening to Hannah side of story. Yes, sometimes this approach worked wonderfully and I loved having two points of view at once, but sometimes I was annoyed as hell.

3. And this is a spoiler, so stop reading if you didn’t finish the book show

Anyways this was a great book and I am glad I read it. The way all the stories are related was nicely done, and the writing is good. It’s a powerful and emotional book, and maybe it will make people think about all those messages hidden between the lines.

Some more side notes:
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“You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.”

ro Note: The Romanian version of the review can be found here.

Extras:

On ThirteenReasonsWhy website you can find many amazing extras including a map, Hannah’s reasons, the tapes and more. Enjoy them!

Music of choice:

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LEAVE A COMMENT

6 responses to “Thirteen Reasons Why”

  1. Racquel says:

    I think I’m the only person left in the world who hasn’t read this…. I can’t wait until I do though.

  2. Ari says:

    It took me a while to read this book because I didn’t know what to expect from it, but I liked it a lot.
    Can’t wait to see what you think of it 🙂

  3. Niahara says:

    I really enjoyed this book as well. It was something different that the books I normally read, but I welcomed the change with open arms.

    • Ari says:

      I always feel the need to change something in this kind of stories, and I can’t and it makes me sad.. But that’s the god part, because as much as I hate what’s happening, I still love the book 🙂

  4. fartun says:

    I enjoyed this book

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