Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Release Date: October 18, 2007
Publisher: Razorbill
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Pages: 304
Buy: Fountain Bookstore / Amazon
Description: Fountain Bookstore
Clay Jenkins returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers 13 cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker--his classmate and crush--who committed suicide two weeks earlier.

On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.

I can't say enough about this book. It's the first book I've picked up in a long while that blew my mind. That's because Asher's debut exceeded my expectations on every level. It's beyond a quick read. Asher's writing is crisp and clean, and it wasn't frilly in the least. The deliberate brevity suits the story well and made some moments of Clay and Hannah's story unbelievably real. (I mention both of them because even though Hannah's voice only appears on audio tapes, it is truly their story.) All of the characters are unique and well-developed. I loved them, hated them, felt sorry for them and sometimes found myself wanting comfort or scream at them. The bottom line is that this novel moved me in a way that I don't think I've ever experienced.

I know people are divided on this book, and that's fine because sometimes that's all an issues book like Thirteen Reasons Why needs to do. The point is that it makes you think about the issue at hand, in this case, suicide. (There are many more, but that's the main focus.) It forces you to step out of your own life and think about the "what ifs" and the things you're never considered in your own life. It forces you to consider that the decisions one person makes can affect other lives. Thirteen Reasons Why does all of these things.

Whether you like Hannah and Clay or hate them, you'll get an intimate picture of how the actions of many lead one girl to end her life and how her decision and the electronic ghost she leaves behind affects those she holds responsible.

Thursday Tangent: High school still sucks.

Today’s Lesson: Going back to high school, even when it's fictitious, isn’t easy.

Like everyone else on earth who wasn’t the star quarterback or part of the prom court, I ran from high school after the graduation caps hit the ground. In fact, there’s very little evidence that I was ever in high school at all.

Unlike the popular crowd, I don’t remember the four years I spent in a campus-style hell staring out windows and willing days to pass fondly. I don’t sit around and reminisce or wish I’d been more of a joiner. With the help of some other disaffected youths I survived and that was all that mattered.

So who knew that less than 12 months away from my 10-year reunion I’d be wishing I’d paid more attention? Certainly not me.

Time was finally erasing all thoughts of those unhallowed halls but then I decided to start writing a book. It seemed like a brilliant plan before I realized that I would have to dredge up memories of classes and teachers and cliques and skuzzy lunch lines. I wanted nothing to do with it when I was there, but I forced myself to go back.

I found a happy safe place in my office then, as some sort of odd self-therapy session, I immersed myself in high school. Sights, smells, and sounds came flooding back to me and with each one I grimaced, not wanting to relive the period in my life where I was bitter and resentful, but too quiet and easily hurt to actually have an opinion.

However, because I avoided the entire experience as much as possible my reference library on the subject is sorely lacking. Even electro-shock couldn’t jumpstart this girl’s memory on this particular topic. So, in my infinite wisdom, where did I turn for inspiration?

Veronica Mars.



I’m not ashamed to say that I loved this show when it was on TV. It’s full of angst and quips and is thick with the high school atmosphere. It even has yellow lockers, and a handful of you out there know that the ones in my high school, in my head, were supposed to be red, but they’re not. They’re yellow. It had nothing to do with the show. The damned things just wanted to be yellow.

My stubborn lockers aside, what I’m saying is that I have such intentional limited recollection of my high school career that I’m looking to Veronica in an effort to create one for my characters. That’s because I spent the majority high school making case studies out of dumb jocks, emo kids, sorostitutes in training and the rest of the masses. Even then I was a reporter embedded, observing and categorizing, but always objective.

I never realized how emotionally removed I was from the experience until I had to write about it.