Teenage Drama Taken Way Too Seriously!

Teenage Drama Taken Way Too Seriously!
Reviewed by Ana Stock

The 2007 novel, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, disgusted me. The novel surrounded a girl, Hannah Baker, who popped a bunch of pills and killed herself, because she was entirely too sensitive to her peers judgments! Come on girl grow up and fight back, it’s your life not theirs! Every teenager is surrounded by pressures to drink and have sex and let’s face it, we are all tormented and teased sometime in our lives. The last thing I want to hear about is some girl who committed suicide, recorded seven tapes (thirteen sides) to spite her so called “instigators.” The story’s main character, Clay Jensen, was just as confused and bothered as I was as he listened to the tapes one after another in search of his name among Hannah’s long list of wrong-doers. She sent the tapes in a box with instructions to send them on to the next person on her list; the next person among her montage of accusatory, childish reasons for hating her peers. She was new to the town when she attended school one day to see her name on a “Hot or Not” list. She was labeled hottest a** in the class. Instead of doing something about the list, confronting its creator, Hannah let it go and the snowball, as she called it, grew and a grab of the butt every now and then, a peeping tom, lost friends, and tiny smirks all brought her to her breaking point. Clay didn’t understand his faults; he assumed that he was some sort of a mistake, that he was not even on her list. Hannah ruined her peeping toms life with her words, she forced people into serious anger towards him and, as Clay discovered, people began to throw rocks at his window, “If he has the guts to look into Hannah’s window, why should we not break his?” She sent a map so that people would feel sorry for her as they visited each spot, which was marked with a red star. Clay followed the map in an almost obsessed manner all the way along the journey, mourning with Hannah’s voice and allowing anger to build up inside of him. To me this book was very juvenile, I don’t understand the point! Life has its stresses but, hello! we all deal with them, Hannah Baker was being ridiculously immature, grow up and do something about what is going on. It is the most selfish thing to commit suicide in the first place and Hannah tried to justify her means of death with frivolous reasons and she was just trying to find someone to blame for every tiny thing, which disgusted me and made me think even deeper about how selfish she was. Life sounded hard for her yeah, but OPEN YOUR EYES and you will notice that every person, child or adult has struggles; if someone grabs your butt, turn around smack him and make your presence well known.
I give this book 1 out of five stars. Sorry guys! You may think I am to critical of Young Adult fiction, but really I just like to hear a well developed and thought out story, I don’t want to hear about something that just seems stupid, there was no really solid reason for her to commit suicide, it would be like me saying I don’t like the cover of this book, I’m going to burn every copy and the stores that sell it. I like real life stuff and this was very unsatisfying, a suicide is not accidental and a rape, while she may not be able to control that, is STILL no reason for an “accidental auto death.” I don’t recommend this book, however if you feel you must I wish you luck!