Janina's Reviews > Thirteen Reasons Why

When I tried to structure my thoughts to write this review, I discovered that it’s actually very hard to write something about a book I liked but didn’t love. I definitely have no hard feelings towards Thirteen Reasons Why but I also don’t really have anything to rave about. Which makes me feel a little conflicted about the rating. This book will stay with me for a while, it made me think, but it also had its flaws.

I thought the novel was based on an original and great concept. We have a simultaneous narration: We get to hear Hannah’s thoughts through the tapes she recorded, and mixed with that, we see how Clay reacts to the things she says. While that is without doubt the perfect way to tell this story (that can probably be enjoyed even more in an audiobook format), I sometimes found it hard to distinguish their voices. I read a sentence, and when I went over it too quickly, I sometimes had to check back if it was in bold or italic to find out who actually said what. While Clay certainly was a sweet guy, I found him to be almost too nice to be true and compared with Hannah, his character and voice felt rather flat.
Also, I expected this story to make me sad and touch me deeply because, after all, it is a story about missed opportunities, about a life ending much too soon, about guilt and grief. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

But, all in all, despite the fact that I wasn’t really emotionally invested, I simply HAD to know exactly what drove Hannah over the edge. I wanted to know her story, to get an idea what made her feel so depressed and alone. I read in quite some reviews that people thought her reasons to commit suicide were shallow. I don’t agree with that at all. They were her reasons and nobody else’s, and I think that she shouldn’t be judged by them. People don’t always have this big reason behind their decisions. Sometimes small things add up to each other, and when you suffer from depression, as Hannah clearly did, even everyday life can be too much for you to take. It can make everything feel like a chore.
Yet, I also found it difficult to understand why Hannah went to such lengths to record her tapes and make sure everybody received them. It seemed to be more about getting back at the people who hurt her than about closure and explanation. Those people did her wrong, no question, but do they deserve what they got? Do they deserve to live with the guilt of being responsible for Hannah’s death? I’m not sure. But this book definitely showed me that even small things we do (or don’t do) can have a huge impact on somebody else’s life, and that sometimes we should take more time to try to understand the people we deal with everyday – be it at school or somewhere else.
But all things considered, I’m glad that Jay Asher didn’t portray Hannah as a victim. She also had her faults, made wrong decisions and – in the end – gave up.

Now I’m still pondering over one question: What is actually worse? Knowing exactly why somebody killed himself and what role you yourself played in his decision? Or living with the fact that you will never find out what caused his suicide and that your questions will never be answered?

#4 TBR Pile Reduction Challenge (Brooke)