Hannah Baker committed suicide. There was no note left. That was the end of it. At least that’s what Clay Jensen thought until a box turns up on his doorstep. Inside the box are seven cassette tapes. Clay doesn’t know what to make of the package until he puts the first tape into a player. Hannah’s voice comes out of the speakers and tells him that on each of the tapes is a story; each story is a different reason why she committed suicide. Clay is in disbelief. He didn’t do anything to her. In fact if anything he had been quite the opposite. He might have even loved her. He doesn’t want anything to do with the tapes. He doesn’t want to hear his name but he needs to know, he needs to understand: why did Hannah Baker commit suicide?
       Thirteen Reasons Why was impossible to put down. The writing is impeccable and the story is intriguing. It reads like a thriller and every chapter leaves the reader more interested to read the next and the next and the next. It is a book with an important message; well there are actually several important messages but the main one to pay attention to is this: Do not ignore when you see a person is struggling with something. Sometimes the most important thing you can do for someone is to let them know you actually see them and that you care. Sure, you shouldn’t bully people and you shouldn’t be part of the problem, but being part of the solution is even more important.
      To be perfectly honest I’m not sure whether I loved this book or hated it. Thirteen Reasons Why does have all of the positive traits that have already been mentioned but it does have one major problem for me: the concept. It makes for an interesting story and purely objectively speaking this is a great book but I’ve disliked books based on content before. Frankly, sending people cassette tapes listing off their role in your suicide seems a little sick to me. I admit that it is probably important that they understand but it also leaves all of those people with that death hanging over their heads. In a lot of ways it seems like she was saying “Look what you did” to all of these people and for the most part none of them could have understood the problem.

Final Verdict:
I am going to recommend the book because it sticks with you. I finished this book in three days and am still thinking about it weeks later. More than anything else it is thought provoking. The story is great, the writing is great, the characters are great but the final verdict of whether or not it was a book I loved rests on the morality of the concept.

This is definitely a young adult book. It has a similar tone to the darker two of John Green’s books but the writing style isn’t very comparable. Fans of that more realistic type of YA fiction though will probably enjoy this book.

Favorite Quotation:

You can’t rewrite the past.