[[In honor of 13 Reasons Why's 100th week on the bestseller list, here's a review!]]
Title: Thirteen Reasons Why
Author: Jay Asher
Format: Paper, Kindle
Rating: 9.5 / 10
Description: When Clay Jenson plays the casette tapes he received in a mysterious package, he's surprised to hear the voice of dead classmate Hannah Baker. He's one of 13 people who receive Hannah's story, which details the circumstances that led to her suicide. Clay spends the rest of the day and long into the night listening to Hannah's voice and going to the locations she wants him to visit. The text alternates, sometimes quickly, between Hannah's voice (italicized) and Clay's thoughts as he listens to her words, which illuminate betrayals and secrets that demonstrate the consequences of even small actions.
In a market where the loudest voices are the teen girls
with their breathtaking romances, the problems of the ordinary teen are often
neglected. There’s nothing wrong with
these books. They’re thrilling and a
perfect escape from an ordinary life.
But ordinary life is important too, and there aren’t many teenagers out
there whose problems include a vampire-werewolf love triangle or their own
budding magical powers. Friends and
family are left to the wayside, and the boy problems become the only problems. Yet teens go through so much, that every
problem should have a voice. Jay Asher
brings us this voice as Hannah Baker in Thirteen
Reasons Why.
From first page to last, the book is a blinding
race. We open on Clay, the narrator, the
good boy still reeling over his schoolmate’s death. Only now he knows her story, and is passing
it on to the next listener. After this
prologue, the reader teeters on the top of a peak as we backtrack to Clay first
discovering the thirteen tapes and Hannah’s demand: Listen to them all. Find out what you did to contribute to my
suicide. Then pass them onto the next
person on the list. Thirteen names, a
multitude of little crimes that build on each other. I started the book at night, planning on
reading a little before bed. I went to
sleep at nine in the morning. Once you
start, you’re drawn into Hannah’s tale.
Her voice talks to you as much as Clay; like him, you feel responsible
for her. Indebted. You can’t stop, because you must know what
happened to her, even if you already know how it ended.
Sometimes I kept skimming Clay’s parts and having to
re-read them because I was so engrossed in Hannah’s story; though his voice
becomes stronger as time goes on, and it becomes clearer how much he cared for
her. You feel for him too, confused and
lost, unsure what he did to drive Hannah to the edge, following her map from
place to place and listening to all the little things that sucked the joy from
her life. You can’t give up until he
does, and he never does. Clay and I both
sat awake through the night, listening.
And Hannah’s story grabs hold of you and never lets go. She seems like a sweet, funny, friendly girl
in a new place. Not ever the kind who’d
dream of killing herself. Yet, a single
rumor changes her life forever. Suddenly
people see her in a twisted light, and treat her as though the rumors are
true. Each action alone seems
unimportant to the actors, but together they weave a tragic story of a teenage
girl losing her faith in herself, in people, in life.
Her voice is remarkably strong, at times tragic, at times
funny and irreverent, at times terrified.
So compelling that when I found my paper copy had the last thirty pages
misprinted, I bought it on Kindle at eight in the morning just to finish
it. Hannah’s ending is set from the
beginning; Clay’s shows hope, and a new understanding of just what little
actions can mean, for good or bad. This
is the message that Asher spreads, and it’s something that teens need to
hear. There are thousands of Hannah’s
whose voices are never heard. It’s my
hope that people will embrace this book and better understand their suffering
classmates. That the sufferers will draw
strength from it and search for help.
Fantasy and romance is fun, but suicide is a crucial issue for young
people. Jay Asher brings it into the
open in a way that is accessible, compelling, and above all sensitive to the
complicated issues behind it. A
fantastic book that everyone should take a look at.
No comments:
Post a Comment