Thirteen Reasons Why

Surprise, surprise!  No I didn't cheat -- or rather I barely cheated -- in continuing The Stand to the end.  I only borrowed a couple things from the library, as I told you a few days ago, and one of those little treats was this, Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why.

Clay is just a regular high-school wallflower - he has no beef with anybody and mostly stays wrapped up in his own life.  Until he gets a package on his doorstep with no return address, and included are cassette tapes, voice-recordings made by Hannah Baker - his recent crush, who more recently decided to end her own life and has used these tapes to pinpoint the 13 people who caused all her grief.  Guess what, Clay is one of them, and he has no idea what he did to deserve a part in this scandal of high-school scandals.  But of course he listens to Hannah's tapes anyway, as she describes piece by piece, the puzzle of her life, and the unexpected connections between 13 people who are not at all what they seem...

This reminded me so much of Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall, as both books have in common a protagonist who is so unaware of their connections to other people as they go about their daily life.  I must admit I liked Oliver's take on this theme a little better, mostly because of some ... technical difficulties I had with Asher's.  The format is interesting, I enjoyed the back-and-forth between Hannah's voice on the tapes and Clay's intermittent reactions to what she says; however a lot of his reactions didn't seem very poignant or interesting, more like filler.  In the beginning this seemed to go very well, as Asher found a couple opportunities to insert some irony here and clever wit there, but later on the interjections from Clay just got to be distracting.  The story itself is a page-turner, and I couldn't help but like Hannah - although at the beginning you do think her just a woe-is-me attention-seeker for what she does, as the elements in her life all add up, I began to understand her.  The ending on the other hand was way too after-school special, so I had to say huh? I guess Asher was just trying to find a neat way to wrap it all up and that must've seemed heartwarming or something.  All in all, a great way to pass a couple days, which is all it took me to read it - the characters are engaging, their stories keep you guessing, and Clay is really cute.  Enjoy!

Back soon with a new review - and will it be The Stand?  Ooo the suspense is killing me too, folks.