You can't stop the future.
You can't rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret is to press play.
Clay Jensen returns home to find a strange package with his name on it. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker – his classmate and first love – who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice explains there are thirteen reasons why she killed herself. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.
All through the night, Clay keeps listening – and what he discovers changes his life... forever
The whole format is very interesting and I didn't particularly like Clay that much. Hes a typical nice guy and reading about nice guys can be well...boring. Luckily Hannah's narration through the tapes was beautiful, the words were realistic and yet I could still see everything that was happening and with each tape the plot thickened and escalated.
I did become worried around halfway through where the events hadn't seemed to escalated to a point when suicide could be considered and I became concerned it cold glorify or over exaggerate something in order to make it plausible. That didn't happen though, the escalation felt natural but also horrifying. I could finally feel Hannah losing the will to live. Of course the tapes were a cry for help, she wanted help even up until and maybe especially on that final tape.
The story unfolded beautifully (poor choice of words) it was devastating and I cried and gasped at all the places I was supposed to. I didn't feel much for Hannah and Clay as people together. I felt Clay was too distant from everything that had happened. The night at the party was just horrific and I could understand why Clay was a reason but it did seem like she was condemning a lot of people for things they didn't realise they were doing. Until that party. When Hannah had to listen to the rape of the unconscious girl and didn't stop it, everything fell into place I felt the guilt and horror. So many small events had led to a much bigger issue. And the book really got me thinking.
I didn't expect much from this book but I am so glad I read it. It really left me with something. I can't name what but I can feel it.
A fun little thing that's been created (and I use fun in the loosest sense here) you can actually listen to all of Hannah's tapes which are surprising well voice acted at http://hannahsreasons.blogspot.co.uk/ I just love it when fictional stories are really brought to life.
I haven't read the book myself yet, but all my friends said it was a horrifying read. They are adamant that the reasons behind her suicide are simply idiotic, for lack of a better word, and that she behaves like a 12-year-old without any common sense. :/ All they say is that I most definitely should not read it. I haven't read the reviews on goodreads, but you are the first person I saw write a positive review on their blog so far, so I was wondering, what made you sympathise with her so much?
ReplyDeleteHey, At first I was worried that all her reasons seemed very dramatic but then bit by bit you start to see that all the small things were soon accumulating into bigger things. That being said the book did take a brutal turn when she hid as some girl was raped at a party and was then partly to blame, if a small amount, for a car accident where a teenager died and was sexually assaulted herself later and told by a teacher to just forget about it and move on. I think the entire point of the book I took was about the small things you know, you can do little nasty things to people and not think it effects them without realising what is actually hurting them. People have other things going on and however small, some people rely on little things to get them through guilt and horror so I guess taking away her ability to write poetry or stealing compliments people were giving her, turned out to be things that in the end, she really needed. That's what I thought anyway, maybe I read too much into it haha :)
DeleteAah, this book. Unfortunately, I agree with Karolina's friends, as much as I hate to say it. Most of her reasons seemed like things she could have prevented (like hiding while the girl was raped at the party! That was HER DECISION.) or little things that wouldn't be such a huge deal to any rational human. I get that the little things snowballed together until she couldn't take it anymore, so mostly I was just angry that she was blaming other people for things that were her fault.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I see what the author was going for, and I see why so many people like it, even though I didn't. I'm glad you had a better experience than I did. :)
Yeah I have to admit I did expect one of the tapes to be about herself, I thought maybe the 13th one would be all about blaming herself so that was disappointing. Especially since I disagreed with the blame of the teacher.
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