Thirteen Reasons Why

If you are having feelings of suicide - find a better book.


Here's what I liked... The audiobook narration.

At first I thought this was an interesting premise, despite the dark tone to it...that ends up being an empty story.

We have it viewed through clay (who has no reason to be on the list????) Who likes her and is sympathetic to her. At first I thought he was trying to have some self deniability or him being a nice guy(tm) - nah! He is nice and has no reason to listen to these tapes.

So, these set of tapes have some people who don't need to be on them? It's just a self fulfilling prophecy at some point, passing the blame on to everyone but her. Hannah doesn't really have a great perspective about other peoples lives - such as clay.. Who left her alone ,after having a wonderful moment , because she yelled at him who didn't do anything wrong now has to listen to these tapes. One of her ex-friends was black out drunk at a party - raped - as her date let him do it and she was hiding in the closet. could you imagine, you may have no memory of that night...or remember that night knowing more circumstances and hannah is STILL like poor me your one of the reasons i'm dead - you still gave her this tape? how heartless. How about that girl who hit a stop sign after taking hannah home after her events at a party, hannah freaked out at her, she was probably already freaked out. she's a teenager who got into an accident, stayed out late at a party, has no money to pay to fix this problem...she probably has to tell the parents who we don't know what the relationship with them is THEN finds out later there was another accident that in a stretch was responsible in a way for (It IS a stretch, like it's still not her fault.) now i'm sure she thinks about often....why is she on the tape?

Don't get me wrong some people deserve to be called out....but NOTHING comes of this. They don't get any jail time or what they deserve. nothing. You never hear anything else from the other characters.

This ultimately didn't work for me for several other reasons. This book is not a graceful way to tackle the subject of suicide. And Hannah was such an unlikable and annoying character, it was hard to be sympathetic even when looking to be. Even kinda glorifies the idea with going off with a bang...although not realizing that you didn't do anything to go off with a bang. You didn't confront anyone, attempt to bring some to justice, reach out for your self, and not realizing the destruction you'll leave in your wake to other people that also have lives you don't understand. In this point- this book might make a good talking point.

What could make this better? Maybe another book in the series with reactions from the other characters on the tapes? You never hear from them ever. I'd like their reactions to listening to the tapes- would speak more volumes then Clay. It would broaden Hannah as a character...a victim, a bully, a hero. Her tapes could be used to serve justice.