13 Reasons Why, By Jay Asher: A Review

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher is a book that will keep you guessing; it’s a thriller, but not to the point where tons of people get brutally killed. Hannah Baker, a main character of this book, committed suicide. Her reasons aren’t very clear. Maybe it was due to the way people were treating her, or maybe she was crazy. When people pass away, it is a sad situation, but eventually people start moving on with their life; Hannah Baker wasn’t going to let that happen. She took it to the next level, by making sure these people who pushed her to limit wouldn’t forget what they did to her, and the reason why she is gone. She records herself on cassette tapes, thirteen to be exact. On these tapes she told what these people did to her.

The narrator is a boy named Clay Jensen, who receives the tapes. He goes to different places that Hannah marked on a map that she stuck in the lockers of the people who were in the tapes. Clay only continues to listen to the tapes to see where he comes in to play, with the reason why Hannah is not there anymore. He starts to learn the true colors of the people who he thought were so sweet.

Tape one started by addressing Justin Foley, the boy who gave Hannah her first kiss, the first guy to hold her hand. Sounds like he is an alright of a guy, right? Think again; he does what most boys in high school would do. He doesn’t get what he wants, so he starts of rumors of things Hannah supposedly did with him. Hannah didn’t go into much detail about the rumors, because there were so many stories that she couldn’t keep up with them.

After reading this book, I realized that words really do hurt. Having stories made up about you, someone watching every move you take in your house and taking pictures of you in your room, or someone taking away your confidence. There is one thing I always see this one quote “Suicide is stupid, not making someone feel so bad about themselves that they would want to kill themselves.” No one deserves to get treated like Hannah did. If you want to see what is on the rest of the tapes, then buy the book. See what these people did to this innocent girl. Maybe this will give some people a reality check on how they should treat others. Don’t be the reason why someone ends their life, be the reason why they are still here.