Thirteen Reasons

Have you all heard of the book called Thirteen Reasons Why.

I have to warn you before you read it that this book is really intense. It really got me thinking and I had a really hard time sleeping last night. A quick summary of the book... Hannah Baker committed suicide, but she had a few last things to say. Before taking a lot of pills, Hannah records 13 cassette tapes. Each tape is "dedicated" to a person who affected her life in some way or another. Many in a negative way. The rules... listen to all 13 tapes, pass them on to the next person, if you don't listen a 2nd set of tapes gets released to the public. The narrator of the book, Clay, always had a crush on Hannah, but never knew how to tell her. Now he has received the tapes, but can't figure out what he could have ever done to hurt Hannah so badly to kill herself.

Before reading this, I was hoping, based off the back of the book, that I could share the book with my class. Such a powerful message. Most of the things that Hannah speaks about on her tapes are negative comments/actions that most of the people probably thought were jokes. Unfortunately, it is a complete high school book. Lots of mature content is in the book. I just kept thinking what a great example at how just a little "joke" at a another's expense could change their friends, the way the feel about themselves, their entire lives.

This book really had me thinking. I literally could not put it down. Although when I did make myself put it down I couldn't stop thinking. I started to think of all the people who changed my life for the good or bad. If I were to write thirteen letters/tapes to thirteen people who would they be? Obviously, not for a suicidal reason. I just was really thinking hypothetically if I were to write these 13 letters who would they go to. I was really surprised at some of the people who I thought of. I won't go into detail of who all I thought of that would make too long of a post and quite personal. It was sort of funny to think that some people I thought of were in my life for such a small amount of time, but they made such a big impact.

Anyways, I really enjoyed the book. It was dark, very dark, but it was interesting.I really felt myself connect with the character. A lot of the feelings she had I could go back to my 16/17 year old self and relate to them.


(picture from http://www.waterstones.com/)