Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This Book could've been a profound reminder of the need to be heard and understood, a common complication of the teenage. But it fell flat on the very pedestal it tried to stand upright on. I am filled with regret to have spent and early morning sleep over a book which failed to strike any understanding and illuminate a very serious issue of the modern times: suicide.

The book is in the form of pre-recorded cassette tapes that Hannah Baker, the suicide leaves for thirteen people who knowingly or unknowingly led her to taker her life. The plot is dramatic and intriguing but the narration is from the point-of-view of one the people she has accused of her decision to take her life. The narration is unreasonably prolonged, maybe the author wanted to build up moment that just wasn't there.

The writing style is bland and very forgettable. Even though you understand that as trivial the indignities faced by Hannah seem, it is fathomable that the suffocation of the barrage of unfortunate events that have unfurled in her life could have led to something similar to a suicide. But I for some reason could not be convinced by her voice, her torment could've been heard had she allowed herself a chance at reformation like her English teacher recommends at the end.

I guess maybe that is what the author wants to insinuate; an unfortunate event as it is, without an artificial manipulation of the human hope to trump an ending. Maybe this is what they mean when they say- "it is what it is."


Even though I can try to understand her desperation to change her circumstances I fail to see the urgency of her choice to stop something as precious as human beating heartbeat. Maybe the writing could've been sharper, the sentences more ornate rather than just being there, they could've taught us a thing or two about life. But they didn't. except for the narrators earnest attempt to not repeat the mistake of not trying a little harder to bear people.

Maybe the only lesson learned from this story is that we can try to hold someone a little too tight
and just try to walk in someone's skin just to feel a little more human.



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