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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
I absolutely loved this book! I could see how people could think that it was glorifying suicide but that's not the point of a book. It reminds you how you need to tell people how you feel about them before it is too late.
Just okay. Had a hard time getting into this story, but it got better about a hundred pages in.
As someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, the initial thought of this book was that it would help people like me. Spoiler alert: I was wrong.
Thirteen Reasons Why is essentially just a giant romanticization of depression and suicide. Depression isn’t something that should be looked at as “quirky” and “cool”.
Not only did this book do horrible in accurately portraying mental illness, but it also wasn’t written the best. ai can’t say I hate too many books, as I love to read. However, this particular book is on my shitlist.
Thirteen Reasons Why is essentially just a giant romanticization of depression and suicide. Depression isn’t something that should be looked at as “quirky” and “cool”.
Not only did this book do horrible in accurately portraying mental illness, but it also wasn’t written the best. ai can’t say I hate too many books, as I love to read. However, this particular book is on my shitlist.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'm having a hard time figuring out how to rate and review this book. It's interesting I'm reading it within a month of Lauren Oliver's "Before I Fall" - both touch on a similar theme of how realizing your actions affect someone else, especially when they are at their most vulnerable. Both left me rushing to finish, compelled to know how it would turn out. Where they really diverged, though, was the ending. "Before I Fall" was a gut punch, but left me satisfied. "Thirteen Reasons Why" probably was meant to feel uplifting, but all I could envision was the end of the movie "Heathers" - but that was a black comedy and it fit; here it felt too neatly tied up, coming full circle, and yet left me frustrated not to hear the rest of the story of the passage of the tapes. I wanted to know how Clay would react as others listened; as he had to deal with those whose secrets he'd already heard.
Despite some glaring issues for me (I don't want to go into too many details because they each give away bits of the story that Asher does an excellent job keeping suspenseful), I found the unique method of story telling and the suspense itself made it an enjoyable read.
Despite some glaring issues for me (I don't want to go into too many details because they each give away bits of the story that Asher does an excellent job keeping suspenseful), I found the unique method of story telling and the suspense itself made it an enjoyable read.
You're not alone. Confidential help is available for free. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255 or https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Polarizing book. Two stars off for the writing...it felt shallow and undeveloped for the most part. The characters were not very well developed, mainly.
As for the subject matter...yes, it's a 'book about suicide' but if that's all you got out of it, we don't read books the same way. I don't see an glamorization or glorifying of it. I see a cautionary tale. More of a 'these are my reasons' (key word here is "my"...Hannah's...not yours or your friend's or your therapist's or anyone else). You don't have to agree with her, like her or even sympathize with her, because they are her reason's. But look at those reasons...within them are signs. Signs Clay missed. Her parent's missed. Her friends, teachers, etc. That should be the real story...she reached out for help and numerous places...and didn't get the help she needed. Is that her fault? Some of it, yeah. Doesn't mean the rest of us can't take something away from it. The ending makes that pretty blunt/clear. If you disagree...good for you.
Asher did one thing pretty great though...kept me wanting to keep reading. The book was hard to put down. So he gets kudos for that.
Polarizing book. Two stars off for the writing...it felt shallow and undeveloped for the most part. The characters were not very well developed, mainly.
As for the subject matter...yes, it's a 'book about suicide' but if that's all you got out of it, we don't read books the same way. I don't see an glamorization or glorifying of it. I see a cautionary tale. More of a 'these are my reasons' (key word here is "my"...Hannah's...not yours or your friend's or your therapist's or anyone else). You don't have to agree with her, like her or even sympathize with her, because they are her reason's. But look at those reasons...within them are signs. Signs Clay missed. Her parent's missed. Her friends, teachers, etc. That should be the real story...she reached out for help and numerous places...and didn't get the help she needed. Is that her fault? Some of it, yeah. Doesn't mean the rest of us can't take something away from it. The ending makes that pretty blunt/clear. If you disagree...good for you.
Asher did one thing pretty great though...kept me wanting to keep reading. The book was hard to put down. So he gets kudos for that.
I read this because my teenager did. She was concerned about sadness and depression at the time and found it helpful, although she was frustrated with Clay's reactions to Hannah's story.
The back cover says, "Thriller-like pacing. - The New York Times," but for me the pacing was agonizingly slow. I found Clay's interjections tedious and I was annoyed by Hannah's snark.
I'm sure that Asher's main point is true - that living and dying is an accumulation of life experiences, not just one incident. But overall the whole thing felt a bit preachy to me. Perhaps it was a poor choice to read this during the holiday season.
The back cover says, "Thriller-like pacing. - The New York Times," but for me the pacing was agonizingly slow. I found Clay's interjections tedious and I was annoyed by Hannah's snark.
I'm sure that Asher's main point is true - that living and dying is an accumulation of life experiences, not just one incident. But overall the whole thing felt a bit preachy to me. Perhaps it was a poor choice to read this during the holiday season.
Definitely not what I was expecting. This book was phenomenal. Very heartbreaking. Reminds us to treat people like we want to be treated.
Good. Not sure if a suicidal teenager would be that thorough. But interesting point of view. And interesting example of a snow ball effect.
4.5/5
Review originally published at: The Starlight Shelves
Several weeks after his classmate Hannah Baker commits suicide, a shoe box filled with cassette tapes arrives on Clay Jensen’s doorstep. The tapes are Hannah’s suicide note, passed on to each of the twelve people with the greatest connection to the events that sped her spiraling depression and hopelessness. The book follows Clay as he listens to and follows the footsteps of her story in one sleepless night.
For a book told almost entirely in flashback, with a known ending, I found it to be extremely suspenseful and compulsively readable. Every side of every tape could be Hannah’s note to Clay and the tension over what she might say about him drives both Clay and the reader through the story. The tension doesn’t dissipate after we get to him though, as all the threads of her story come together and we see the final weeks of her life.
I loved the composition style of this book. We hear all of Hannah’s words, italicized in the book, and Clay in first person before and after each tape as well as interjected throughout so his thoughts and emotions are experienced immediately and intimately. I haven’t heard the audiobook, but I bet it’s great, since this is pretty much the perfect story for the format. I also loved that Clay was on the move throughout the story, travelling to the places she mentioned on the tapes, because it lent a artfully misplaced sense of urgency to the story. Hannah mentions the place immediately before she talks about what happened there so that her listener arrives after her story there is done. It emphasizes her disconnect from the world before she died and the fact that everyone is too late to help her.
I had some mixed feelings about Clay as a character. He came out to be a little too perfect, Walkman theft and lying to his mom excepted. Nearly every other character was such a strong mixture of good, bad, and misguided that he felt a little more flat in terms of traits. His relationship with Hannah was completely embedded in the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, which I find to be over done, but the book did make an effort to challenge the idea that people can be viewed with simplicity. I guess I just struggled with Clay because he was a narrator that I felt wasn’t as realistic as he could have been, though I’m not sure because I wouldn’t relate to him (which I don’t mean a bad thing!) even if he was.
Ultimately, it’s a book with a clear message that it executes well: everything we do and say can and does affect someone else. There wasn’t really one major event that caused Hannah to lose hope, it was the accumulation of many missed chances and negative events, both small and large. I recommend it to teens (and their parents!) and fans of teen contemporary novels, I think it’s earned its popularity. It has an element of mystery and suspense to it as well, so if you like that kind of thing and don’t read a lot of contemporary, you can definitely give it a try as well.
Review originally published at: The Starlight Shelves
Several weeks after his classmate Hannah Baker commits suicide, a shoe box filled with cassette tapes arrives on Clay Jensen’s doorstep. The tapes are Hannah’s suicide note, passed on to each of the twelve people with the greatest connection to the events that sped her spiraling depression and hopelessness. The book follows Clay as he listens to and follows the footsteps of her story in one sleepless night.
For a book told almost entirely in flashback, with a known ending, I found it to be extremely suspenseful and compulsively readable. Every side of every tape could be Hannah’s note to Clay and the tension over what she might say about him drives both Clay and the reader through the story. The tension doesn’t dissipate after we get to him though, as all the threads of her story come together and we see the final weeks of her life.
I loved the composition style of this book. We hear all of Hannah’s words, italicized in the book, and Clay in first person before and after each tape as well as interjected throughout so his thoughts and emotions are experienced immediately and intimately. I haven’t heard the audiobook, but I bet it’s great, since this is pretty much the perfect story for the format. I also loved that Clay was on the move throughout the story, travelling to the places she mentioned on the tapes, because it lent a artfully misplaced sense of urgency to the story. Hannah mentions the place immediately before she talks about what happened there so that her listener arrives after her story there is done. It emphasizes her disconnect from the world before she died and the fact that everyone is too late to help her.
I had some mixed feelings about Clay as a character. He came out to be a little too perfect, Walkman theft and lying to his mom excepted. Nearly every other character was such a strong mixture of good, bad, and misguided that he felt a little more flat in terms of traits. His relationship with Hannah was completely embedded in the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, which I find to be over done, but the book did make an effort to challenge the idea that people can be viewed with simplicity. I guess I just struggled with Clay because he was a narrator that I felt wasn’t as realistic as he could have been, though I’m not sure because I wouldn’t relate to him (which I don’t mean a bad thing!) even if he was.
Ultimately, it’s a book with a clear message that it executes well: everything we do and say can and does affect someone else. There wasn’t really one major event that caused Hannah to lose hope, it was the accumulation of many missed chances and negative events, both small and large. I recommend it to teens (and their parents!) and fans of teen contemporary novels, I think it’s earned its popularity. It has an element of mystery and suspense to it as well, so if you like that kind of thing and don’t read a lot of contemporary, you can definitely give it a try as well.