What's going on right now. (:

So I started Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why on some time last week and got to page 40. At that point, I was convinced that I did not like this book. The girl the novel is centered around was making me increasingly angry and frustrated with both how flippant she was and what kind of pain she was causing the main character with what she was doing.

This is the cover of a novel that I, after those irritating first 42 pages, realized I love.

After starting this novel last week, not picking it up until last night, and then finally trying it again and flying through last night, I can honestly say this has been one of my favorite books in a long time. Not only was it a touching emotional whirlwind of a story, it was easy to read yet well-written and thought-out.

The story begins the day the main character and narrator, Clay Jensen, receives a package with no return address. Inside the package are cassette tapes marked with little blue numbers, but no labels. Upon popping in the first tape and pressing "Play," Clay hears the last voice he ever expected to hear again: the voice of his long-term crush with a not-so-great reputation, Hannah Baker.

Why would hearing her voice be such a shock to him, you ask?
Because only two weeks earlier, Hannah committed suicide.

Her recorded voice informs Clay that on the tapes are thirteen reasons why she did what she did, thirteen instances that led up to her taking her own life, and every one of these reasons involves a specific person. The tapes are to travel through these thirteen people, ultimately to end up in the hands of the final person who let her down. And if anyone on this list gets the bright idea to dispose of or keep the tapes so the secrets stop there, there will be consequences.

Whoever currently has the tapes is being watched.


The story really hit home with me, I'll put it that way as to not go into some maudlin spiel (vocab!). I also took a step back and thought for a moment, what if what happened to Clay as a side-effect of what Hannah did to herself happened to me?

I'm going to be honest with you, reader, I cried.

That's how powerful this book, story, and topic is.

Throughout this novel, I laughed, cried, seethed, and smiled. I would definitely recommend it, just don't give up during the first 40 pages. 'Cause as frustrating as they are, those pages, those feelings that brew in you as you read, are all part of the grand effect of the novel. (: