Author: Jay Asher
Published: 2007
Genre: Young Adult
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.
This novel was published in 2007 and until 10 years later, nobody (myself included) knew much about this incredible and shocking story.
The main theme of this novel is school harassment and the results it leads, in this case to a suicide.
Jay Asher, the writer, introduces us to Hannah Baker a 16-year-old teenager who suffers from bullying, after been suffering for a long period of time she decides to commit suicide. But, before she dies, she records 13 tapes explaining the reasons why she committed suicide and puts them in a box with the purpose sending them to the 13 culprits and explaining them why are they in the guiltiness list.
Here enters our second main character, Clay, is Hannah's friends and he is also one of the 13 culprits.
The novel is narrated in two voices, the point of view of Clay and then, Hannah's recordings. The two voices help us a lot in the understanding of this harsh and crude story, above all, it gives us a detailed and realistic idea of everything Hannah suffered during the harassment.
The characters have enchanted me, they are very realistic and have come very close to what teenagers could be.
Falling in love with the characters it has been very easy, the writer has helped a lot to visualize how the main characters have felt in each moment.
Clay is a sweet, sad and sentimental person throughout all the book, he is a confused boy who tries to understand what happened to Hannah, the most part of the story he is blaming himself for not helping avoiding her suicide and he expresses clearly the feelings he felt for Hannah.
Hannah has proven to be a strong and depressing girl. She is the voice of a girl who lost all the hope to live and is getting more and more noticeable as you read the book, it shows how she is suffering more and becomes colder for each tape that passes. But she is determined to unveil the truth of her whole story.
On the other hand, the rest of the characters, have seemed to me wicked and stupid, although I can understand the motivations they had for their actions, I cannot forgive everything they have made Hannah suffer and the hatred I feel towards them.
All the combination of the characters makes the reading having an agile rhythm and makes the pages fly by. I spent the whole night reading this shocking story because I wanted to know who the culprits were and what they had done.
Thirteen Reasons Why is a very realistic and hard history that makes us reflect on the society with which we live today. This book may be a wake-up call for all of us and makes us realize that all our actions, even the smallest ones, have their consequences.
I just have to thanks the magnificent writer for this incredible novel. It is clear that he has written it openly, he has expressed all the feelings he wanted without hesitation or concealment, and that is why this surprising and complete book has reached the whole world.
"When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.”
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