"Thirteen Reasons Why" Book Review...

...I'll be doing a couple book reviews around here and keep in mind that my mom was (retired now-yah her!) middle school librarian so that's where we get a lot of the books from. "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher is about high school student Hannah Baker. Hannah's committed suicide and she was 13 reasons, or people, that she pins it on. She makes cassette tapes about what they did and each of these people are supposed to pass them on. Clay, a co-worker and fellow classmate of Hannah's, has had a long time crush on her and has somehow wound up on the tapes. The book follows him listening to the tapes to understand why she did what she did. It does jump POV from her to him but it's fairly easy to follow.

Okay, let me admit...I'm a turn to the last page and read it before I start a book kind of girl but with this book, you couldn't. Each chapter introduced a new character, some were wound together, but by reading the last page, it didn't give anything away-I mean after all, we all know Hannah was already gone. Now reading the book, some things didn't seem that bad to make you want to kill yourself but at the same time, think back to when you were a teenager and how hard life was then. In life, all we ultimately want is to be accepted by our friends, our families, our co-workers and ourselves. Unfortunately for Hannah she never felt that acceptance. Reading this book was also like watching the Titantic, you knew it was going to sink but you had small hope that it wouldn't. Reading this book through Clay's eyes and seeing/feeling how much he liked her and wanted to save her, made me hope that maybe the end would end with something like, "...and then she walked into class" but it didn't. To me, the ending didn't necessarily tie everything together but my mom thinks it might have been left that way for a sequel, we'll see...

It was an easy and fast read and whether you like the book or not, it had a good point. As the author signed my copy and stated, "Everything affects everything."