13 Reasons Why
Ratings16
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings16
Average rating3.8
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.
Reviews with the most likes.
Originally, I am not sure how exactly I stumbled across 13 Reasons Why, I just remember there was a lot of talk around the show coming out and after deciding to give it a shot, I gotta say, I wasn't all that disappointed. I thought the show was done really well and then I saw the book on sale at the store and decided to give it a shot even though Young Adult is not really my thing when it comes to book genres. In this instance I would prefer the show to the book, just because the show was more profound and seemed to dig into all these issues much deeper, whereas the book merely touched the surface. Still, the book was not bad and I don't regret reading it one bit.
To begin with, 13 Reasons Why is about a girl in high school, named Hannah Baker, who commits suicide after a lot of things transpire to push her over the edge and before she dies she records a series of audiotapes explaining why she did it and who was involved in making her feel like she had no other way out. I think the plot is very unique and I haven't really read anything like it before so it definitely stands out and the fact that it's about such a tough but important issue makes it all the more significant and worth a read. I think the high school me would have benefited from this book back in the day, when I had a tough time and life felt like it would never get better. However, being a lot older then I was back than, I kind of found that I wanted more from the book and I really wanted the issues to have been looked into even deeper but I guess that's where the YA aspect of it comes into play.
Further on, the characterization is good but just not enough. It seems that the book is rather short and even though I love a quick read, I really think the author could have dug deeper into all the flawed and sinful characters of this book. Again, it really is my fault because I am obviously not the targeted audience here and I usually tend to find Young Adult novels too primitive and shallow for my liking. I prefer my books to really.....go there...all the way there and in that aspect this book falls flat.
Finally, the writing style was like a breath of fresh air and it really fit with how quick of a read this really was. I didn't have any issues understanding what was happening and didn't find that I had to go back and reread any sections whatsoever. But with it being YA that was expected really. As with everything else in this book, it wasn't bad by any means, it just wasn't amazing.
In conclusion, I would recommend this to people who aren't triggered very easily because this book contains a lot of disturbing triggers, so it's not for the faint of heart. If you don't get triggered easily, I think the people who would enjoy this book the most would be young adults, teenagers. Those are also the people whom it would benefit the most, in my opinion. It could definitely help opening up ways into tough conversations that are not had enough.
