Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Quarter 3 Book Review

"Thirteen Reasons Why," by Jay Asher is about a boy Clay Jensen, who is also the narrator of the story. One day Clay comes home from school to find a package with audiotapes in it on his front porch. The 7 tapes make up the suicide note of a girl who killed herself two weeks prior to Clay receiving the tapes. Hannah Baker made the tapes and on each tape instructs the listeners to pass them on to the next person on the list and if they do not do this, then the tapes will be released to the public. The catch is that everyone on Hannah's list had in her eyes some responsibility for her death. There are 13 total stories, involving different people. While Clay is listening to these tapes and hearing all the stories he is nervous for the part where he may come in, even though he has no idea how he could possibly be responsible for anything. Clay follows Hannah's map that also came with the tapes. The person who has the tapes at any given time are supposed to follow the places on the map as they listen and then mail the tapes after they are done to the next person on the list. While Clay is listening to the tapes he feels bad for Hannah and wishes there was something more he could have done for her. When he finds out from the tapes that he had nothing to do with her death but rather she was thanking him for being nice to her and sharing his feelings for her even though she knew he kept his distance because of all the rumors about her. Tony, one of Clay's best friends lent Hannah his cassette player the day before her death but he did not realize what she was using it for until the cassettes showed up on his porch. Tony was not a part of any of the 13 stories so he knew his place was to release the tapes to the public if they did not get passed on as Hannah wished. The story ends with Clay passing the tapes on to the next person, and learning many things from Hannah's story.

I think the author's purpose of writing this novel was to raise awareness about suicide but most importantly the effects that people have on each other. Hannah tried to reach out to people. She showed warning signs such as giving her valuables away and even straight up going to talk to the guidance counselor about ending her life. When the people she tried to reach out to did not give her a helping hand she decided that no one really cared for her and this was the ultimate deciding factor that made her end her life even though she came out and said I don't want to do it but I feel like I have to. Many times people are reluctant to help others because they don't