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Summary
Summary
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
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"Eerie, beautiful, and devastating." -- Chicago Tribune
"A stealthy hit with staying power. . . . thriller-like pacing." -- The New York Times
" Thirteen Reasons Why will leave you with chills long after you have finished reading." -- Amber Gibson, NPR's "All Things Considered"
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.
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-With the arrival of a box of numbered audiocassettes, Clay Jensen's life changes forever. Listening and reacting to the words of fellow classmate and crush Hannah Baker, Clay begins to understand and to feel the depth of the pain, anger, and confusion that led to her suicide. With each recorded story, Hannah systematically lays bare the cruelty and deception of the 13 people whose actions she implicates in her decision to end her life. Alternating between Hannah's and Clay's voices, narrators Debra Wiseman and Joel Johnstone zero in on the indecision, angst, and desperate hunger for acceptance experienced by young adults struggling to find their place in the world. There are no heroes in this novel (Razorbill, 2007) by Jay Asher, and each character, including Hannah, is guilty of making poor choices. The pace of the story and the constant tension of wondering what will happen next make this an "edge of the seat" listening experience whose unanswered questions provide much food for thought and discussion.-Cindy Lombardo, Cleveland Public Library, OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
This uncommonly polished debut opens on a riveting scenario: 13 teenagers in a small town have each been designated to listen, in secret, to a box of audiotapes recorded by their classmate Hannah and mailed on the very day she commits suicide. "I'm about to tell you the story of my life," she says. "More specifically, why my life ended. And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why." Clay, the narrator, receives the tapes a few weeks after the suicide (each listener must send the box to the next, and Hannah has built in a plan to make sure her posthumous directions are followed), and his initial shock turns to horror as he hears the dead girl implicate his friends and acquaintances in various acts of callousness, cruelty or crime. Asher expertly paces the narrative, splicing Hannah's tale with Clay's mounting anxiety and fear. Just what has he done? Readers won't be able to pull themselves away until that question gets answered-no matter that the premise is contrived and the plot details can be implausible. The author gets all the characters right, from the popular girl who wants to insure her status to the boy who rapes an unconscious girl at a party where the liquor flows too freely, and the veneer of authenticity suffices to hide the story's flaws. Asher knows how to entertain an audience; this book will leave readers eager to see what he does next. Ages 13-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) When high-school student Clay Jensen receives a mysterious package of seven cassettes, he is dumbfounded to discover they are from Hannah Baker, a classmate who committed suicide just two weeks earlier. Over the course of twenty-four hours, Jay attentively listens to Hannah's story as she identifies him as one of the thirteen reasons she chose to end her life. Narrators Johnstone and Wiseman impeccably interpret Clay's anxious musings and Hannah's unrelenting, bitter accusations in alternating monologues. The addition of an emotionally overwrought song provides a saccharine finale to a heretofore riveting study of the adolescent psyche. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
High-school student Clay Jensen returns home one day to find a package waiting for him. Inside nestle seven cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, a classmate who committed suicide a fortnight earlier. Hannah's instructions are clear: Clay is to listen to the tapes to find out how he fits into the puzzle of her death, then he is to mail them to the next person on a list of 13 names. There are 13 reasons why Hannah killed herself, and Clay is one of them. This is a tremendous premise, even if it is preposterous. Hannah's cool voice and impeccable planning do not seem like the actions of a teen who is bent on self-destruction. Still, if you can get past this initial contrivance, you are in for a dizzying ride of suspense and revelation. Hannah is a master storyteller who unfolds her narrative with teasing economy. Not until the very end of the tapes do we get her full account of how the stresses of high-school life in Middle America have become unbearable. There are no huge disclosures here, no murder plots or incest dramas. Instead, Hannah recounts a sequence of unhappy, small incidents of the type which might mark any young woman's adolescence. Mostly these are to do with low-level bullying, some of it sexual. A boy Hannah kissed in the park spreads the rumour that she is easy. Her new girlfriends - she has only just started at the school - are not the supportive sisters that she might have hoped for. When she sends signals that she is about to kill herself, students and staff fail to do much about it. This, it turns out, is the reason that Clay, who seems a decent enough boy, is on Hannah's list. He has long had a crush on her, but allowed social awkwardness to keep him disengaged from the girl's growing distress. While nastier boys have violated Hannah's trust in herself and others, Clay's crime is one of omission. He has simply failed to step in and stop the rot. This first book by Jay Asher is remarkable for its technical elegance in weaving words from Hannah's tapes with Clay's reactions and memories. Occasionally there are stumbles in meaning and tone, but the suspense is wound tight as we wait to find out who is next on Hannah's hit list. Less successful altogether is the characterisation of the girl herself. Hannah comes across not so much as a young soul in distress as a vengeful harpy who takes pleasure in naming and shaming the people whom she blames for her end. This moral confusion is heightened when we discover that Hannah herself has been guilty of some lapses of good citizenship. But perhaps this is to read Thirteen Reasons Why too rigorously. It is not a moral polemic but a clever sleight of hand. What it manages to do very effectively is ask its teen readers to think carefully about how being part of a herd can mean trampling weaker, peripheral members. The book has been a huge hit in the United States, with young readers hailing it as both a warning and a manual for how to get through the high-school jungle. Young British readers will inevitably have to spend some time mapping the landscape of the book on to their own parish interests. Chances are, though, that the references to diners, driving and cheerleaders will add an exotic tang rather than detract from a story whose message is universal. Kathryn Hughes's The Short Life and Long times of Mrs Beeton is published by HarperPerennial. To order Thirteen Reasons Why for pounds 6.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846. Caption: article-childfiction.1 This, it turns out, is the reason that [Clay Jensen], who seems a decent enough boy, is on [Hannah Baker]'s list. He has long had a crush on her, but allowed social awkwardness to keep him disengaged from the girl's growing distress. While nastier boys have violated Hannah's trust in herself and others, Clay's crime is one of omission. He has simply failed to step in and stop the rot. This first book by Jay Asher is remarkable for its technical elegance in weaving words from Hannah's tapes with Clay's reactions and memories. Occasionally there are stumbles in meaning and tone, but the suspense is wound tight as we wait to find out who is next on Hannah's hit list. Less successful altogether is the characterisation of the girl herself. Hannah comes across not so much as a young soul in distress as a vengeful harpy who takes pleasure in naming and shaming the people whom she blames for her end. This moral confusion is heightened when we discover that Hannah herself has been guilty of some lapses of good citizenship. - Kathryn Hughes.
Kirkus Review
"Everything affects everything," declares Hannah Baker, who killed herself two weeks ago. After her death, Clay Jensen--who had a crush on Hannah--finds seven cassette tapes in a brown paper package on his doorstep. Listening to the tapes, Hannah chronicles her downward spiral and the 13 people who led her to make this horrific choice. Evincing the subtle--and not so subtle--cruelties of teen life, from rumors, to reputations, to rape, Hannah explains to her listeners that, "in the end, everything matters." Most of the novel quite literally takes place in Clay's head, as he listens to Hannah's voice pounding in his ears through his headphones, creating a very intimate feel for the reader as Hannah explains herself. Her pain is gut-wrenchingly palpable, and the reader is thrust face-first into a world where everything is related, an intricate yet brutal tapestry of events, people and places. Asher has created an entrancing character study and a riveting look into the psyche of someone who would make this unfortunate choice. A brilliant and mesmerizing debut from a gifted new author. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
When Clay Jenson plays the casette tapes he received in a mysterious package, he's surprised to hear the voice of dead classmate Hannah Baker. He's one of 13 people who receive Hannah's story, which details the circumstances that led to her suicide. Clay spends the rest of the day and long into the night listening to Hannah's voice and going to the locations she wants him to visit. The text alternates, sometimes quickly, between Hannah's voice (italicized) and Clay's thoughts as he listens to her words, which illuminate betrayals and secrets that demonstrate the consequences of even small actions. Hannah, herself, is not free from guilt, her own inaction having played a part in an accidental auto death and a rape. The message about how we treat one another, although sometimes heavy, makes for compelling reading. Give this to fans of Gail Giles psychological thrillers.--Dobrez, Cindy Copyright 2007 Booklist
