Review: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Thirteen Reasons Why

Author: Jay Asher

Release Date: October 18, 2007

Publisher: Razorbill

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers thirteen cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush, who committed suicide two weeks earlier.

Hannah's voice explains 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 first-hand witness to Hannah's pain, and learns the truth about himself, a truth he never wanted to face.

"You can't stop the future. You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret... is to press play." (I love this quote from the back of the book.)

READ THIS! I absolutely loved it. I was hooked from the first page and I could not put it down. It took me about a day and a half to finish it. If I would have started it earlier in the day it would have only taken me one. Even my friend picked it up to see why I liked it and ended up reading a couple chapters! I enjoyed the writing style of the book and I felt as though I was listening to the tapes as Clay was. I have heard that this is an excellent book to listen to on audiotape and I can see why. There were some points in the book where it seemed like Hannah was just whining and she did seem to be a little self-centered. I mean who sends out tapes after they kill themselves?! However, I feel that really added to the book. There were also a couple characters in the book that I really didn't like. Not in the sense that they were badly written but I think that is how you are supposed to feel about them. They were mean and arrogant and didn't care about what happened to Hannah and I really wanted to punch them in the face. (hehe) I loved the ending. I don't want to say why, as it would obviously be a spoiler, but that may have been my favorite part. You'll just have to read it to find out why. Read on: Hardcover Rating:  Did I mention that you should read this book ;-)