Book Talk - Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Greetings fellow earthlings! It's me, Unicorn. My friend recommended a book to me a few months back and a couple weeks ago, I finally read it! It's called Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, and it's another relatively dark book. This book is about a girl who committed suicide, but before she died, she recorded tapes explaining why she killed herself. Those tapes got sent around to everyone who was in some way responsible for her death. Then, a boy named Clay Jensen r
eceives the tapes; but he has no idea what he could have done that made Hannah want to kill herself. He was nothing but nice to her. So Clay listens to all of the tapes, traveling around the town to places Hannah mentions on them, and what he hears changes the way he thinks forever. (As always, this book talk will contain spoilers, but there will be a warning first.)

This book seems very dark and frightening, but it's actually quite good, and I liked it. I loved the little pictures of what buttons Clay presses, and I just think that added a lot of character to the book. I loved how it was a mixture of the tapes playing and Clay's narration. It made it very interesting how he went to the actual places Hannah mentioned, even though I kind of failed to see in what way it advanced the story. Why would Hannah send the people listening to the tapes to a park, for example? Yes, things happened there. But it didn't really do anything. It didn't seem to make Clay or myself understand her story any better. I think it was mainly just so there was something going on in the background, other than just Hannah's talking. But I did think the places were well described; even the old Blue Spot Liquor sounded so amazing that I wanted to be there. Even though it was described as old and shabby, I just want to see it. The descriptions in this book are overall well written.

(SPOILERS AHEAD. SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK.) One thing I didn't like at all was: the summary on the back of the book led you to think that Cole was responsible for her death. That was mainly why I picked the book up from the library; I wanted to know what he had done. But it was nothing, which was slightly disappointing. He just had that 'butterfly effect' when he left her in the room that caused her to witness a crime. But he really did nothing bad.

This is a shorter book talk, reason being that I don't have too too much to say about this book. I liked it and found it interesting, and I also related to Hannah at times (by far not to the same extent, though) but it wasn't an absolutely life-changing experience when I read this. It was really good, but not outstanding. I'd probably give it 3.5 stars. (Maybe 3.) Which is not that bad!

Comment below your opinions of this book, or if you want to read it, or book recommendations, or just overall anything! Opinions, thoughts, constructive criticism, etc.! Thanks for reading!

~Unicorn