Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Summary: A high school boy, Clay, receives a set of 13 cassettes in the mail, recorded by a classmate who recently killed herself. On the tapes, she gives 13 reasons why she committed suicide, and is sending the tapes to the 13 people she considers the reasons.
Mini Review: This book was a very compelling read – like Clay listening to the tapes, I felt like I had to read to the very end. I’ve read this one twice (4 years between readings) and it remained as powerful and compelling as the first time.
I met Jay Asher when…
He did a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Manchester, NH, back in 2010. He’s a funny guy despite the dark subject of this book. One cool thing he did was have a girl from the audience read a short section of the book with him, so you could hear “Clay’s” voice and “Hannah’s” voice. It was really powerful and I imagine the audiobook would further give life to the story, seeing as how the story is told through audiotapes.
He signed my book with the phrase “Everything affects everything.” That pretty much sums up the book and will hopefully make readers more aware of how their actions influence others, both positively and negatively.
I also discovered that on the back of the book jacket (the hardcover edition, obviously), is the map that Hannah gave to Clay to follow as he listens to the tapes. I liked being able to look at the map when I re-read the book and figure out what the phrases beside the red stars meant.
Work in Progress 