Books in 2013: #11 Th1rteen R3asons Why by Jay Asher

So Thi1rteen R3asons Why is the first book of the year where I can say I read it, and didn't like it (and not just because of the overly gimmicky number-letter title). It was one of those things where I was standing in a bookstore looking at the back jacket of the book and a Chapters employee walked up and said, "ohmigodiLOVEDthatbookyoushouldtotallybuyit" all in one breath. So I took it out of the library (my home away from home) and read it.

Here's the gist: A high school girl commits suicide, and immediately after she does so, a box of cassette tapes is sent to a person on a list. That person is forced to listen to all 13 tapes of her talking, each tape being devoted to one person whom she blames for her death. When you've listened to your section of the tape, you can either continue, or just send it to the next person on the list, which is the person who's on the tape after yours. And if you don't, there's someone out there who sent the package to the initial person who will expose all 13 of you to the general public, and everyone will know what you did.

First, I hated the girl who'd committed suicide. This isn't a girl who was bullied into not believing in herself and became a shell of who she once was. This isn't someone who timidly cries through all the tapes asking in a tiny voice, "How could you do this to me?" No. While she says she was reduced to this, she's haughty, angry, confident, and, frankly, downright mean on these tapes, and when you read what she says in some of them, you can't help but think, "Really?! That girl pretended to be your friend when she really just wanted a ride to a party and because of that you killed yourself and blamed her?!"

Luckily, I read this before my world was recently ripped apart by a suicide very close to me (I'm not going to go into it here). And sadly, it wasn't the first suicide that's broken my world. Suicide is serious. Bullying is serious. I've seen what it can do to people, and I've been on the receiving end of it. In that overly hormonal, incredibly sensitive and confusing world known as adolescence, there's very little strength and confidence and knowledge to put behind those thoughts, and young people do it all the time. I never got a sense in this book that this girl was frightened and alone; I thought she was pathetic. And that's a terrible thing to think about someone who's gone through what she does (some of the people she addresses in the book truly are horrible creatures who deserved these tapes, don't get me wrong).

There is a ton of praise on the jacket from organizations and people saying how important it is to address bullying and suicide — it's being hailed as life-changing, important, and a "modern classic." But instead I felt it was undercutting just how bloody serious this problem is, and making the victim out to be the bully instead. And frankly I would hope a "modern classic" would be better written. I liked the first-person protagonist, Clay, who's one of the people who receives the tapes, but there were times where his reactions to things were overreactions, so much, "WHY, HANNAH, WHY OH WHY," but when you find out why she included him on the tape, you actually hate her a little more, not less. I managed to keep reading til the end (you can't help but want to know why she's chosen this guy, so, like him, you listen to all the tapes to get to his section). And it's not all bad; frankly I think the idea is amazing, but the execution was more annoying than intriguing for me.