Thirteen Reasons Why

by Jay Asher

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

**THE BOOK THAT STARTED IT ALL, NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES**

“Eerie, beautiful, and devastating.” —Chicago Tribune

“A stealthy hit with staying power. . . . thriller-like pacing.” —The New York Times

“Thirteen Reasons Why will leave you with chills long after you have finished reading.” —Amber Gibson, NPR’s “All Things Considered”

You can’t stop the future. 
You can’t rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.
               
Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

Need to talk? Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) anytime if you are in the United States. It’s free and confidential.

Find more resources at 13reasonswhy.info.
 
Find out how you can help someone in crisis at bethe1to.com.

• ISBN10: 1595141715
• ISBN13: 9781595141712
• Publish Date: 18 October 2007 (first published 1 October 2007)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Razorbill
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781595141712

Reviews

[notajammiedodger]

I just want to clarify that I didn't give this book two stars because it was a bad book, it just wasn't for me. Suicide doesn't sit well with me.

I should have thought about the fact that this book is about suicide more before I bought it. I was really intrigued at the beginning of this book, wanting to learn Hannah's story, it definitely hooks you in from the very first page. I only realized about half way through why I wasn't getting into the book as much as I thought I should be I personally believe that suicide is the most selfish thing that any one person can do, I'm not saying that it isn't a serious matter and that we shouldn't try and stop it, it's just to me when someone does something like this, they are thinking only of themselves. Of taking away their own pain because they don't want to fight anymore, not caring enough about how what they do will affect the ones that love them.

Hannah's character annoyed me quite a bit throughout the book, I wasn't really getting why she wanted to commit suicide other than just because she couldn't be bothered to put up with any of it anymore and to kind of get revenge on the people that had hurt her. I couldn't really see what Clay liked about her either, but I guess he didn't know her that well. Other than that, this was a great awareness sort of book and I would highly recommend it, you may like it more than me. It is a very education story about ehat effects our actions can have on others, especially when we don't realize it. In the case of this story, it is both the effects that Hannah's "friend's" had on her life, but also what effect her actions had on the people who cared about her like Clay. I really liked that about this book.

If you have read this book, you should check out this song about it by Alice Invictus here.
All of her other songs are great too.

This review is also on my blog The Confessions of a Book Nerd :)

[inlibrisveritas]

This is a book that tackles some pretty serious issues, and they are not issues most people even acknowledge until they are forced to. And for that I find this book to be very touching and eye opening. I can’t give it a higher star count because I still have some issues with it, but they are issues that make sense when you take the time to think on it. I don’t normally read contemporary fiction and the reasoning is kind of ironic. I don’t like reading about real life, it tends to be far too depressing. So why did I choose this? I can’t really say, I saw it and put it down to begin with. But after walking around the whole store I walked back and picked it up, I just had to. The concept was interesting, and it was something that seemed like it needed to be read. And read I did, I finished it at 4am the day after I bought it.

I think the writing and the style was very effective in telling this story. By having the different point of views, Hannah and Clay’s, it really gives you a kind of perspective and the characters’ voices. Hannah is telling her story and gives her reasons, and even though it seems like she’s giving most of the story…I think it’s important to realize that’s she’s not and that she’s not meant to be a perfect person. There is a lot she doesn’t say and thus we only get what she tells. Clay’s voice was kind of like mine at times, and so I connected him with the reader’s perceptive. He said things that I was thinking like the fact that I didn’t find some of excuses to be good reasons to end her life. I think that’s where it looses stars. Don’t get me wrong I understand that everyone is different, their tolerance and threshold is different and some times things can get heavy. There times during the book though that just really got on my bad side, like the whole concept of these tapes being made. It bothered me that she would go through it all just so she could tell why she committed suicide (and if you read it you’ll see why, but I’ll avoid saying why due to spoilers). It also bothered me about some of the reasons she included, some did in fact seem like she was searching for reasons or that she didn’t do more to avoid it. The way it was written does grip you though and nearly refuses to let you go. I had to read her whole story, regardless of weather or not I felt she wasn’t completely justified in all of her choices. Let me say it does NOT condone suicide, never once does it make it seem like an acceptable route.

Just because I gave this 3 stars doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of 5, and in a sense it really is but somethings bothered me and it effected my response to it. The message in this book is one that needs to be discussed, especially with high school kids who tend to take a kind of freedom with their choices. I do recommend this book but if you don’t like books with heavy topics then you should probably steer clear.

[boghunden]

If you ask me, it's important with these kind of books. Books about anorexia, bullying, suicide etc. This book is about suicide. About rumours. Throughout this book I had a weird feeling. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Was it good? Bad? I still don't know. One thing I do know is this: it kept my interest. I just had to read the next chapter. And suddenly, it was over.

Hannah's 16. It doesn't seem that way. She acts like she's 12. I don't know exactly what it is, it's just the way she's described, she just doesn't seem that mature.

To me, this book was overrated. There were a lot of characters, considering this is a novel of just 300 pages. I also had to get used to the way Clay and Hannah were both in the book, only seperated by the italic text. Based on the writing, I would've thought this was the debut novel of [a:Jay Asher|569269|Jay Asher|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1243931536p2/569269.jpg], but since the copy I read was Danish, it doesn't seem fair to judge to hard on that part.

When I read the last four pages, I got somewhat angry. How can you end a book that way? Since I don't wanna spoil you, I won't say more about it.

I also felt like the 13 reasons were somewhat innocent - it needed more layers.

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

A gripping tale about how we the way we treat other affects one individual's life.