Johanna Kelly's Book Review

Thirteen Reasons Why
By Jay Asher

****

Thirteen Reasons Why is a novel about a teen girl's suicide. Before Hannah killed herself she recorded seven audio cassette tapes of her talking about the reasons why she will kill herself. These thirteen reasons are people. People she felt were not necessarily to blame, but to know how she felt about them. Hannah sets up a system of having those tapes delivered to each of the 13 people. The character that happens to be listening to these reasons during the book is a boy named Clay.

This book is very suspenseful. As the reader, we keep asking questions: how is Clay involved? Was Hannah's life that bad that she needed to die? What is wrong with her? I could not stand to put the book down. I read it straight through.

Reading the cover, it looks as if a suicidal girl just wants to blame everyone else for her suicide; this is not the case. She wants the people to know what could have gone right, and how they needed to change. So much happened to this poor girl, yet no one seemed to care. When one did care, Hannah pushed them away.

I gave this book four stars because this book is powerful. It gives us insight on what a suicidal person must be thinking. The book does seem to be a bit slow to read, seeing as though the text is made up of Clay's thoughts and Hannah's recorded words. I would encourage anyone to read this book. This might make you realize that Hannah is closer to you than you think.