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raekoch's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Such a hard topic. I couldn’t stop reading once started but have been avoiding this one for a while. Glad I read it but definitely could be a trigger.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape
Minor: Suicide
crabinspace's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Grief
Moderate: Vomit and Car accident
shyleek's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The telling of the main story through cassette tapes offered an interesting point of view.
Also seeing the reaction of the person listening to the tapes offered a unique perspective.
Asher gave us the opportunity to explore suicide and mental health from both perspectives... The victim and the ones left behind.
Also seeing the reaction of the person listening to the tapes offered a unique perspective.
Asher gave us the opportunity to explore suicide and mental health from both perspectives... The victim and the ones left behind.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Mental illness, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Body shaming, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual violence
rody's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Death, Rape, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Toxic friendship, Bullying, Car accident, Grief, Self harm, Violence, Toxic relationship, and Mental illness
roseswithoutthorns's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Rape
Moderate: Bullying
thepurplepeep's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Rape, and Suicide
Moderate: Sexual assault and Bullying
missgrangerr's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I could not put this book down! I had to know why she did it, and why Clay was a part of it. A large part of me wished that she was not dead, but showing these people how their actions are perceived, yet that was all in vain. This book causes you to look at yourself and move forward being more aware of your actions and how you treat others.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Rape, and Suicide
vivisms_82's review against another edition
dark
2.75
I'm in two minds about this book. On one hand it is terrific highlighting how in general you never know what is going through someone's head or what they are experiencing in private, so to perhaps treat each other better, listen better, check in with each other better. On the other hand I found Hannah arriving at such a final, serious decision seemed kinda flippant and not believable. Her tapes were predominately on blaming others but didn't explicitly reflect how others actions made her feel to the extent where life wasn't worth living. Just sounded finger pointing and being pissed off but where was the emotion? Where was the despair of what she was going through? Her voice is clear, not shakey, definitely not depressed or melancholic (like you'd expect someone with suicidal ideation to be presenting). Suicide being the end result just doesn't make sense. But maybe that was the author's point - Hannah's suicide is not supposed to make sense. I don't know but either way, considering this is YA and most of the target readers will be YA, I think the author missed an amazing opportunity to do better. Because after reading this book, it seems to glamorise suicide and insult the resilience and tenacity of teens and that instead they can just throw in the towel when things are unpleasant - because that is what most of her grievances are - unpleasant experiences. Hannah makes suicide feel like an easy, reasonable solution when in my experience no one has arrived at that decision so casually. I am curious how much research (if any at all) the author did about teenage mental health and suicide. I read that he based this on a close relative's attempted suicide and wanted the focus to be on how we treat people and not on mental health. But writing a book where the content is as serious as a 17 year old taking their life and purposely not exploring the shaken state of their mental health from said bad treatment, feels lazy and incomplete. Exploring this would have given insight and perspective and maybe made me more sympathetic to Hannah.
Other issues I had were the major gaps of guilt between characters that featured on the tapes (Someone saying you have a hot ass has the same weight as being a rape bystander apparently. Oh and she was a rape bystander too but apparently she is off the hook but Justin isn't). And why the flip Hannah doesn't feel Bryce should get his comeuppance is beyond me! You're dead Hannah so why do you care? She wanted the tapes to be passed along which is fine but how about sending a tape solely about Bryce to the cops?? He should go to prison so he doesn't rape another girl ever, ever again. Talk about misdirected anger and blame Hannah! That truly pissed me off. Also, Hannah's lack of sympathy or concern for Jessica was bothersome for me. She has time to make the tapes but did she ever stop and think maybe Jessica might need some support too? And she doesn't even think about the impact of divulging Jessica's rape to all these people will have on Jessica. She may or mayn't remember what happened but now, at least 13 people know about her assault. Just awful.
The highlight for me was at the end when Clay sees Skye and goes to check in with her (well we assume he is). I'm hoping Jessica is next on his list to chat with.
** In case you are wondering why I scored such a flawed book more than a 1/5, it is because I feel like this book at least creates dialogue about suicide in teens and for that alone I think it is not so bad.
Other issues I had were the major gaps of guilt between characters that featured on the tapes (Someone saying you have a hot ass has the same weight as being a rape bystander apparently. Oh and she was a rape bystander too but apparently she is off the hook but Justin isn't). And why the flip Hannah doesn't feel Bryce should get his comeuppance is beyond me! You're dead Hannah so why do you care? She wanted the tapes to be passed along which is fine but how about sending a tape solely about Bryce to the cops?? He should go to prison so he doesn't rape another girl ever, ever again. Talk about misdirected anger and blame Hannah! That truly pissed me off. Also, Hannah's lack of sympathy or concern for Jessica was bothersome for me. She has time to make the tapes but did she ever stop and think maybe Jessica might need some support too? And she doesn't even think about the impact of divulging Jessica's rape to all these people will have on Jessica. She may or mayn't remember what happened but now, at least 13 people know about her assault. Just awful.
The highlight for me was at the end when Clay sees Skye and goes to check in with her (well we assume he is). I'm hoping Jessica is next on his list to chat with.
** In case you are wondering why I scored such a flawed book more than a 1/5, it is because I feel like this book at least creates dialogue about suicide in teens and for that alone I think it is not so bad.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Bullying, Suicide, and Sexual assault
rafacolog's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
0.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Bullying, Drug use, and Suicide
unusuallyy's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
TW // discussion of suicidal thoughts in a character; brief mention of personal experience with suicidal thoughts; swearing; brief discussion of a character's rape
i'm going to preface this by saying that this is a two-sided book. for some people, it's been a great help and has connected them with the characters and made them feel seen. for others, it's been the opposite.
for me, it was amazing at first - that's why it became my new favorite book for a couple of months and i'd left a five star review here. but then i noticed the issues.
i came back to common sense media and goodreads, and i noticed all the negative reviews about hannah and her being a vengeful little a-hole. and these were true. upon rethinking the book's plot, i came to several conclusions:
1) while hannah's thoughts could be justified (i'd had thoughts based on social issues before) depression, ptsd, or getting help was never discussed. it didn't provide another way out. there was no hope from the start, making it an unrealistic depiction of real life.
2) it makes all the kids in the high school seem like dickheads, and when i read it, i was in seventh or eighth grade (where i live, this is still 'middle school'). this made me worry much more about high school, and whether or not everything was going to go okay. normally it's just a few people who are being terrible; hannah's point of view made everyone (except perhaps clay?) awful people.
3) hannah pins the blame for her suicide on her old friend who drifted away from her...and includes in her 'reason' tape that one of the reasons she's gone is because her friend got raped?? that makes no sense whatsoever. why did something that happened to someone else ... ??? idk, mate. maybe it's because she chose not to intervene and feels guilty, but that was really her fault, not jessica's!! she doesn't even send a tape to the apist, either. that's practically victim-blaming.
4) it portrays school counselors as unhelpful, and not good resources for change. sure, the new 'school counselor' is also the english teacher, and perhaps not professionally trained for such a job. but that was no reason to write this counselor as one of the reasons! from what i've experienced, school counselors have been fairly helpful, and painting this character as just a bit better than vecna's puppet in stranger things season 4 is not helpful!
5) it's an amalgam of ideas, not planned to work together very well. the cassette tape idea from the museum asher mentions is smashed together with a random notion to make something involving the "baker's dozen". this is a novel about a young woman's suicide - there shouldn't be any jokes to it! suicide is a serious issue, and it almost feels like this book generally treats suicide as a nonserious, valid way of getting out and getting revenge - which leads into my next point...
6) it romanticizes suicide. this book inspired my idea to make my own thirteen reasons why list, and had me considering following in hannah's footsteps and getting revenge on the people who'd made my life worse. honestly, such an idea should never be planted in teens' heads - it can have devastating consequences.
7) it insinuates the idea that people who are depressed or considering suicide have always a concise list of developed, separate reasons before going through with it. this makes no sense, and from personal experience the reasons for going through with it are never distinct or separate from one another and they kind of bleed together. through the haze, none of it really made sense or was 'reasonable' at all.
i'm going to preface this by saying that this is a two-sided book. for some people, it's been a great help and has connected them with the characters and made them feel seen. for others, it's been the opposite.
for me, it was amazing at first - that's why it became my new favorite book for a couple of months and i'd left a five star review here. but then i noticed the issues.
i came back to common sense media and goodreads, and i noticed all the negative reviews about hannah and her being a vengeful little a-hole. and these were true. upon rethinking the book's plot, i came to several conclusions:
1) while hannah's thoughts could be justified (i'd had thoughts based on social issues before) depression, ptsd, or getting help was never discussed. it didn't provide another way out. there was no hope from the start, making it an unrealistic depiction of real life.
2) it makes all the kids in the high school seem like dickheads, and when i read it, i was in seventh or eighth grade (where i live, this is still 'middle school'). this made me worry much more about high school, and whether or not everything was going to go okay. normally it's just a few people who are being terrible; hannah's point of view made everyone (except perhaps clay?) awful people.
3) hannah pins the blame for her suicide on her old friend who drifted away from her...and includes in her 'reason' tape that one of the reasons she's gone is because her friend got raped?? that makes no sense whatsoever. why did something that happened to someone else ... ??? idk, mate. maybe it's because she chose not to intervene and feels guilty, but that was really her fault, not jessica's!! she doesn't even send a tape to the apist, either. that's practically victim-blaming.
4) it portrays school counselors as unhelpful, and not good resources for change. sure, the new 'school counselor' is also the english teacher, and perhaps not professionally trained for such a job. but that was no reason to write this counselor as one of the reasons! from what i've experienced, school counselors have been fairly helpful, and painting this character as just a bit better than vecna's puppet in stranger things season 4 is not helpful!
5) it's an amalgam of ideas, not planned to work together very well. the cassette tape idea from the museum asher mentions is smashed together with a random notion to make something involving the "baker's dozen". this is a novel about a young woman's suicide - there shouldn't be any jokes to it! suicide is a serious issue, and it almost feels like this book generally treats suicide as a nonserious, valid way of getting out and getting revenge - which leads into my next point...
6) it romanticizes suicide. this book inspired my idea to make my own thirteen reasons why list, and had me considering following in hannah's footsteps and getting revenge on the people who'd made my life worse. honestly, such an idea should never be planted in teens' heads - it can have devastating consequences.
7) it insinuates the idea that people who are depressed or considering suicide have always a concise list of developed, separate reasons before going through with it. this makes no sense, and from personal experience the reasons for going through with it are never distinct or separate from one another and they kind of bleed together. through the haze, none of it really made sense or was 'reasonable' at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Alcohol
Moderate: Rape, Cursing, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment