120 books

#22 of 2012: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I am tempted to give it five stars because of its unique and suspenseful storytelling - and I admit I couldn’t pry my hands away from this book - but come the latter chapters, it became less fascinating. Maybe I got tired of the seemingly endless troubles - most of which I found too petty and therefore unworthy of suicide, which was the whole point of this story - of Hannah Baker, the one who left all those cassette tapes to make all the people who made her suffer while she was alive SUFFER now that she was dead. I felt like Jay Asher crammed in too many issues for Hannah to take and THAT WAS WHY SHE KILLED HERSELF. Well, this is a suicide story, after all, and of course, it has A LOT OF ISSUES, but the thing is Asher might have overdone it a little. Also, I hate him for not letting Clay, who loved Hannah Before and After Suicide, have a stronger connection with her. Just like Clay, the thought “WHY IS CLAY IN ALL OF THIS IF HE HASN’T EVEN DONE ANYTHING???” jogged through my mind all throughout the book - yes, even after Clay played the cassette of his story and why he was included in the list was revealed. HOWEVER! All in all, still worth the time and heart-poundings.

Yay!s
-Quite an ambitious book but in my opinion, still a success. Asher got away with the he-tells, she-tells style by not using the traditional technique. It would feel like “Hannah says this, and then Clay feels like this” for most times, but you really wouldn’t mind it anymore since you’d be too engrossed with how things were unfolding.
-Can it get any more retro with the use of cassette tapes?? NOW I WANT A RECORDER!!

Boo!s
-The cover is not very attractive. Only if you look closer and are a bit hallucinatory, you’d think it was Saoirse Ronan on the cover.
-Clay kept saying “God!” It was just sad that Asher couldn’t have made his character’s vocabulary wider.