Playlist for the Dead

by Michelle Falkoff

A moving, poignant, compelling YA debut, as a 15-year-old boy struggles to understand his best friend's suicide through the list of songs he leaves behind.

Here's what Sam knows: There was a party. There was a fight. The next morning, his best friend, Hayden, was dead. And all he left Sam was a playlist of songs, and a suicide note: For Sam – listen and you'll understand.

As he listens to song after song, Sam tries to face up to what happened the night Hayden killed himself. But it's only by taking out his earbuds and opening his eyes to the people around him that he will finally be able to piece together his best friend’s story. And maybe have a chance to change his own.

Part mystery, part love story, and part coming-of-age tale in the vein of Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Playlist for the Dead is an honest and gut-wrenching first novel about loss, rage, what it feels like to outgrow a friendship that's always defined you – and the struggle to redefine yourself.

• ISBN13: 9780008110673
• Publish Date: 29 January 2015 (first published 27 January 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 356
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

Playlist for the Dead is on the title and chapter headings of this novel and it's apparently what this story is all about. I would have enjoyed the playlist if it wasn't made the focal point of the novel. Let me explain. This playlist is supposed to make Sam, the main character, understand why his best friend committed suicide. The playlist is woven into the story, but it does absolutely NOTHING to explain why Hayden, the best friend, committed suicide.

I also wanted an emotional book like Thirteen Reasons Whywhich made me question how much my actions impact on others. I wanted to read a book that dealt with suicide. Why do people do it? What makes them feel as though their lives aren't worth living? I wanted a book that would delve into the psyche' of the best friend who was left behind and how does his friend suicide affect his life and that's the only thing that this book dealt with.

I didn't hate Playlist for the Dead. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't really know that I was in the mood for something that was light, fluffy and hopeful (well as much as a book about suicide can be) until I started reading this book.

The way I could easily relate to Sam as a character made me scared! Sam is the male-version of myself. Sam is a nerd. He isn't perfect on the inside and the outside. However, he is able to put puzzles together and see things for what they are. He is also cynical, mildly paranoid and his rare snarks were the snarks that I would have made in that same scenario. Sam is dealing with the suicide of his best friend, Hayden. I felt as though the way in which Sam dealt with his best friends suicide was realistic. He blames himself. He feels guilty that he is happy while his best friend is dead and he is also angry at the people who had hurt his best friend. The fact that I could relate to Sam as a character made his emotions realistic and believable.

Most of the characters in this novel aren't stereotypical either. When I started reading Playlist for the Dead all the characters were cardboard cut-outs of the jocks, the nerds and the art geeks. However, these stereotypes, for most of the characters, are slowly chipped away and I started to realise that they were vulnerable, insecure and secretive about the truth behind their lives.

Unfortunately Playlist for the Dead, was quite predictable. I knew which character was behind the horrible occurrences in this novel, after that character was introduced for the second time. I also figured out who Athena was long before she was revealed. This did take away my enjoyment from the story.

Even although Playlist for the Dead was a predictable and unemotional read, I was able to enjoy the portrayal of the characters and related to the main character, Sam, and his emotions. I'm still confused about what role the playlist had in the novel, but the light, fluffy and hopeful treatment of death and suicide made Playlist for the Dead an interesting read.

[Sam@WLABB]

I really enjoyed this book. I am not exactly sure why I felt "4 Stars" about it and not 5. I think maybe it was the ending or that I thought I should have felt more given the topic. Maybe it was because you think this is going to be a story about suicide, but it's a lot more. The first chapter is tough. Sam finds his best friend, really, his only friend dead. Then he finds the thumb drive with the playlist and a note from Hayden, saying it would explain everything. The bulk of this book is Sam trying to figure out why Hayden did it, but it is also a story of self discovery. Sam learns a lot about himself as he is trying to solve the mystery of Hayden's death. Each chapter is a song (great music, by the way). Each song is appropriately connected to different events in the story, some in real-time, some in flashbacks. I liked the variety of ways the past events were presented to us. The author did a good job of depicting many different types of characters, who defied stereotypes, but she also gave us those characters who looked like they had it all together on the surface, but were privately suffering. In my opinion, there is someone for almost everyone to identify with in this book.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

I loved the sound of Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff the first time I read the blurb, but I've finished it feeling disappointed.

Hayden has taken his life. There's no explanation why, just a USB stick he left with a note for his best mate Sam to listen and he'll understand. Except Sam has listened to the playlist over and over, and he's as clueless as he was the first time he listened to it. All he knows is that the last time he saw Hayden, they argued, and he's burdened with his guilt and anger. When Hayden's bullies are slowly taken down one by one, Sam starts to worry that perhaps he's doing it without realising, and with other strange goings on, like getting messages from Hayden's avatar on Gchat, Sam starts to worry about his mind. But he needs to know what led to Hayden taking his own life, and he's determined to find out.

I had several problems with Playlist for the Dead. Firstly, there's the fact that we don't really get to know much about Hayden. He's Sam's best friends, he's a geek, he likes to play Mage Warfare, but he doesn't like socialising with other people. That's all I know about him as a person. He was bullied, one of the bullies being his older brother, and his parents didn't really care about him. Despite what Sam says about these things, and what he saw, I never felt like I knew where Hayden's head was. There were flashbacks of conversations Sam and Hayden had, but there was nothing major about how he felt. As the story goes on, we find out about the events that led up to Hayden taking his life, and there were some awful things happening, but I didn't understand why he took his life. Not that it didn't make sense, but that there should have been more about how he was feeling, because I simply didn't get it. Perhaps Sam was the wrong narrator, because he didn't seem to know anything about what was happening with Hayden, so it makes it difficult. And the playlist... I really didn't get that at all. No idea what Hayden was thinking when he left it for Sam, no idea how it was supposed to help.

Then there's the fact that it was really slow. It took ages for the book to really get going, and when it did, trying to figure things out but getting nowhere until the end. I was so frustrated with the pace, I kept putting it down. I just wasn't really interested. And I simply didn't like Sam. I didn't warm to him, he annoyed me more often than not, and he was ridiculously obtuse. How he only started figuring certain things out towards the end that were obvious from the middle of the book, I don't know. There would be a whole realisation moment for him, and a face-palm moment for me.

And when we have all the details, I was left feeling... that's it? But as I said above, I think that's more to do with not know what was going through Hayden's head. It doesn't necessarily take much to push someone over the edge. I really think we needed to see that. And, despite his crappy life, there was no sign that he was depressed. It's important to me that we see that. We should see that. Depression shouldn't be hidden, and if he was depressed, then he hid it pretty damn well. That doesn't sit comfortably with me. Not even his best friend seeing something wasn't right - even I, as the reader, could see that something wasn't right. It bothers me, it really does, because it's scary. People with depression shouldn't hide it, they should seek help, and there's nothing covering that in this book. And if he didn't have depression, then I'm at a complete loss as to what I think about this book, I really am. Because then I don't get it at all.

Really not my cup of tea, unfortunately. This book just wasn't for me.

[A Darker Shade of Rosie]

Thank you NetGalley for lending me a copy of this book to review!

LIKED: Sam's best friend, Hayden, commits suicide, and I liked the mystery as to why (although the whole premise is very sad). I liked the idea of Hayden leaving Sam a playlist of songs. (And I knew most of them.) • Sam loses lots of sleep post-Hayden; so much so that he begins to hallucinate. I thought these parts of the book were mysterious and even entertaining. • The main character learns to not hold grudges, and not harbor hate towards anyone. Important life lesson!

DISLIKED: There was no closure as to why Hayden picked the songs that he did for the playlist. As an audience, we don't get a lot of closure, period. • The friendship between Sam and he 'artsy-clique' girl somehow linked to Hayden's suicide didn't turn out the way I wanted it to - I felt pretty deceived.

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[Leah]

Harper Teen are by far my favourite publisher on Netgalley/Edelweiss. I am auto-approved for them and they regularly add new batches of novels to Edelweiss for my perusal, and one such novel that caught my eye was Playlist For The Dead. I thought it sounded like a very interesting novel, with a very serious subject matter. The premise reminded me a bit of 13 Reasons Why (which I haven’t actually read, but I think everyone knows what it’s about, right?) and I was very curious what had caused Hayden to kill himself.

Playlist For The Dead has one of the easiest premises I’ve ever read, but it’s actually a very, very complicated novel – for most of the novel I was as frustrated as lead character Sam when it came to trying to get answers about what lead to Hayden’s suicide. It was fruitless for most of the novel with only Hayden’s cryptic message and his playlist to go by. It was quite the tale to unravel, and it wasn’t simple, either.

whatiloved

Sam was a very captivating narrator. I could feel his sadness and his confusion over Hayden’s death, I could sense his frustration as he tried to figure out what happened, his sense of helplessness. I’ve thankfully never known anyone who has killed themselves, but I know it would torment me if I did. Day and night, as it did Sam and I felt so sympathetic to him as he was the one left behind.

I was also really struck by his affinity with Astrid. Astrid was a fantastic girl, I loved her sense of style, I loved that she changed her hair and her clothes on a daily basis and she wasn’t afraid to be who she really wanted to be (although the thing that caused her to act this way was, again, a very sad event). Throughout the whole novel there’s this sense of sadness, and everywhere you turn there’s someone unhappy, and it was quite tough to take, but that just made it all the more powerful.

Probably the thing that I liked the most was the dual mystery of unwrapping Hayden’s suicide and finding out who was exacting revenge on the bully “trifecta” who had plagued Sam and Hayden up until Hayden’s suicide. I was curious to see who was the person getting revenge on these bullies, who very much deserved what they got (in my eyes, anyway).

thenotsogood

I have to confess that I finished the novel feeling like I still had questions that needed answering. There’s a lot made of Hayden’s playlist and how it’s super important to his death, but I never felt we got a clear or concise answer about that. Though it’s hard to say that because truly the only person who knew why he killed himself was Hayden, and he was dead, and most certainly couldn’t answer that question himself.

I was also a little bit sad at the ending. I’m a happy-ever-after kinda girl and I would have liked Sam to have forgiven Astrid for what she did, because they were just so awesome together.

verdict

Playlist For The Dead was a fascinating, absorbing novel. It wasn’t a happy novel, it was a haunting, sad novel, filled with expected misery everywhere you looked. But it was an eye-opener, and just goes to show that suicide doesn’t just affect the person who dies, it affects everyone around them, and the blame game is inevitable. It was a very strong novel, one that will most definitely speak to a lot of people, and despite it’s subject matter, I am glad I read it. I feel more aware of the subject now, considering my past feelings on the subject of suicide.