13 Reasons Why Review!!!

You can’t stop the future. 

You can’t rewind the past.

The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. 

                

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.

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REVIEW!!!!!

Jay Asher has written a book that touches on a very important subject and he made sure it resonated with everybody who read it.  That being said, when I tried to read it a few years ago I couldn’t get into it.  With the release of the show on Netflix I decided to give it a second shot but had to watch the first couple episodes before I could really get into the book.

 

This book is about teen suicide and it is a unique take on it.  In this book the main character is technically dead and she has left tapes with 13 reasons (people) who led to her suicide.  You are reading about one person listening to these tapes and their take on what he is being told.  What makes this book so unique is what happens to the characters after they listen to these tapes.

 

Now, while I truly enjoyed the book I liked the show so much better.  So let’s get into this topic.  I felt like the book was more rushed.  The listener fly’s through the tapes without truly showing any emotions in the book.  While you get a little bit of the characters feelings coming through in the book everything is larger in the show.  In the show the listener takes days to listen to all the tapes because he is so torn up over what he is listening too.  You actually see the other characters reacting to what they had heard and listened to.

 

Now that you have a slight comparison on the book vs the tv show let’s move on.  I loved the characters and the plot blew me away.  This is a book and show that I feel everybody should read.  It is a topic you don’t see a ton of books on and there should be more in my opinion.  While the flow of the book worked it did move a little slow for my liking.  Jay’s writing style was also interesting.

 

Needless to say that this is an extremely well written book.  It is on a very different and strong topic and you should pick it up and read it now.

 

4.5 stars