Clay Jensen returns home from school one day to find a mysterious box with his name on it, outside his front door. Inside he discovers a series of cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker – his classmate and crush. Only, she committed suicide two weeks earlier. On the first tape, Hannah explains that there are 13 reasons why she did what she did – and Clay is one of them.
I guess I read this book the wrong way around, as I watched the first two Netflix series’ and then decided to invest in this book, but I have to say this did not really affect my enjoyment of either forms of the story.
There are strong opinions around about this book (and tv-series), one camp saying it is a valuable resource for anyone going through issues with depression verses those who say it encourages suicide.
Personally, I am probably somewhere in the middle here as yes, it does seem to show that someone had to die to get other people to change (which could be seen by some as romanticising suicide), but on the other hand, how would you tackle this issue (something which is very prominent in today’s society), without going into details?
I think it is a very narrow path to tread, but I think the author did this rather well. The actual suicide is not that dramatic or drawn-out, in fact it covers about a page or so our of 300-ish (in my copy which was the Netflix version).
I read one review on GoodReads which was talking about how not all the people included in the tapes was guilty of a crime, but just ‘aware’ of what went on. I think this person is probably missing the point here as the book is showing how a series of events, be them very minor or otherwise can easily add up to cause a lot of hurt and anger in a person’s life.
Yes, there is a world of difference between adding someone’s name to a list where they are named rear of the year, compared to being raped, but still, even continuing little events (if you took out the rape) could easily weigh on a person’s brain, especially if there are outside factors also to be considered – such as moving to a new city, having been bullied previously, any number of things.
Another review I read talked about how the word depressions was never mentioned, the protagonist never attempted to get help etc etc, this person may have never been in a similar situation, or was maybe just looking to be very negative, because once again, this is one of the main points of the book – what can happen if someone can not (for whatever reason) get help for the issues they are facing.
The book even states, on one of the latter tapes, that Hannah has tried everything else she can think of, so she is making one last attempt before ending things to try and get help from the school counsellor.
One of the most important things to consider here is that it’s not just for the person directly involved in issues to responsible for their health, it’s also very important for people surrounding them to keep an eye out and if they think something may be wrong, even if they think they are being nosey, or they have their own problems going on – ask the person if they are ok, show them that they have a support network available if required.
It’s too late to have regrets once the person is gone.
I feel like I have had a bit of a rant here about other people’s opinions, without really giving my own and it’s been quite easy for me to do as I know first hand about a lot of the issues covered here, so I will try to get back on track, as it’s easy for anyone to take a look at review sites and see what others are saying.
Initially I struggled with the format of the book as it was quite start / stop – i.e. Clay starts listening to the tape, then interjects with his own thoughts, then the tapes continue etc etc, but the style soon grew on me as it did play out as it would in ‘real life’ for any group of people living through this experience – you would have this dialogue with yourself as you relived things that happened as they were triggered in your brain.
Overall, I would say this book was very well written and dealt with everything in a very sensible and none-judgemental way.
Some people love it and some people hate it, but it does achieve one thing, it’s got people talking and if people talking goes on to save even just one person’s life then it is more than worth it.
All in all, I was impressed with the book, although not a cheery book as it did honestly leave me feeling rather down myself, in such a way that I had to take a break after reading each chapter.
Overall Rating – 5.0 / 5.0
