Chances are good that you already know what this book is about (and that you’ve already read at least four hundred reviews of it), but just in case you’ve been living under a rock (and hey, that’s all right, sometimes under the rock is a nice place to be), here’s a description from the publisher:
Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers 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.
For the most part, I enjoyed reading Thirteen Reasons Why, but I did have a few problems with it. Let’s look at the good stuff.
First, the obvious: teen suicide is a real, serious issue, and we need to start talking about it. And teens’ inner lives and emotions are in many ways foreign and unknowable to adults. Thirteen Reasons Why gives teen readers insight into the ways in which their words and actions—no matter how harmless they may seem—can affect others, and it reminds adult readers of the emotional intensity of adolescence.
As I read Hannah’s descriptions of her reasons for ending her life, my first reaction was frequently, “Well,yes, that’s awful, but it’s no reason to kill yourself.” But then I realized that was my adult reaction and that things that don’t seem like a big deal to me now would have seemed huge and unforgettable ten years ago. When it comes to the portrayal of deeply felt adolescent emotions, author Jay Asher nails it and gives young readers a character to identify with and learn from. And the moments he chooses to imbue with meaning will be familiar to many of us.
Asher utilizes alternating narrative voices that weave together as if in conversation, so we get Hannah’s words and Clay’s thoughts and emotions as he listens to them. This gives the book a great sense of immediacy and urgency, and it enables us to identify and sympathize with both characters simultaneously. As Hannah’s tapes progressed, I found myself holding my breath, feeling the growing knot in my stomach, and hoping against hope that Hannah’s indictment of Clay wouldn’t leave him irreparably damaged.
And now for the not-so-good stuff.
(This section contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know, scroll down.)
The characters in Thirteen Reasons Why are teenagers, and undeniably so. They have teenage problems and teenage responses to those problems. They have teenage relationships and the teenage emotions that accompany them. But many times in the book, the characters come off as more mature than your typical teenagers, and that just didn’t work for me. If these are really kids that anyone should be able to identify with, then why are the so witty, articulate, and emotionally aware? If Hannah could examine her problems carefully enough to understand how they fed into each other and how they affected her, why couldn’t she see any other possible solution?
Additionally, while it makes for compelling reading to have Hannah blame her suicide on thirteen other people and explain the role each person played in her decision, I think she should take more responsibility for how she chooses to (not) solve her problems. Yes, some of her experiences are traumatic and painful….but all teenagers have embarrassing, uncomfortable, painful experiences and get through them without committing suicide. Hannah had other options, and she could have reached out.
And yes, she did reach out to Mr. Porter, her English teacher/guidance counselor. And no, that didn’t go very well. But if she was looking for a way out, for an adult to help her, she could have found one. That last tape made me so angry because it seemed that she wasn’t looking for help but an excuse, and since he didn’t help her the way she wanted him to, she could blame him for her decision.
While we’re on blame, let’s talk about the fact that Asher spends half the book building us up to wonder what Clay could have done to contribute to Hannah’s death only to have it turn out that he didn’t do anything! I mean, it’s not that I wanted Clay to have done something awful. I liked him and felt for him and wanted him to be okay….but it didn’t make sense to me that Hannah would address him with a message of sorrow and forgiveness in the middle of tapes blaming twelve other people for her death. Why put him through all of that?
And, as Amy and Candace pointed out when we were discussing the book on Twitter recently, where were the rest of the adults? We know that Hannah’s parents have been busy and stressed out, and we see Clay’s mom in a few brief interactions, but where are everyone else’s parents? How have these tapes really made it through more than half a dozen other kids before reaching Clay without anyone stumbling upon them or noticing sudden changes in their child’s demeanor? I can see how creating a mini-world populated entirely with teenagers might work for a teenage audience, but it seemed like a gaping hole to me.
Spoilers over. What’s the final verdict?
Thirteen Reasons Why may not be a perfect book, but it is an important book that provides a starting point for creating dialogue about social and psychological problems with teenagers and teaching them how (and why) to consider the consequences of their actions. This is a suspenseful story filled with intense, almost palpable emotion. Teens will likely see themselves and their peers within the pages of Thirteen Reasons Why, and adults will both remember their own experiences and recognize the ways in which the world for today’s teens is very different. 3.75 out of 5.
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