My favourite book: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

About 3 years ago I borrowed a book from a friend about a girl who committed suicide called Thirteen Reasons Why. Not the most welcoming of topics to read about, but this book focuses on a different angle of the story. Although the book is a few years old now, I've been obsessed with it since the first time I read it!


It begins with the narrator of the book, Clay Jensen, sending a package with 7 cassette tapes to a girl names Jenny. We learn that the tapes are audio-taped suicide notes left by his classmate Hannah Baker who had killed herself 2 weeks prior.

While the book doesn't exactly sound inviting by that introduction, I promise you it gets better!

The tapes have a total of 13 stories on them and they come with a map which listeners must follow. Hannah explains on the first tape that each person that receives the tapes is partly responsible for her death. She also tells the listeners that after listening they must pass the tapes on to the next person on the list. If anyone on the list doesn't pass them on, Hannah says that the tapes will be made public.

The thing I liked most about the book is how the story is set out - the structure is completely different to any other book I've read. The narrative is shared between Clay's thoughts and Hannah's voice on the tape. Play, pause and stop buttons are used to differentiate between the tapes and Clay's thoughts. I thought this was a really clever way of telling a story and for me, it gave the book a bit of an edge.

Continuing with the plot, Clay makes his way through the tapes desperately wanting to find out what role he played in the death of his classmate and, as we learn, crush. He follows the map included in the package whilst he goes through the tapes. In the ninth tape, Hannah reveals that Clay didn't actually play a part in a suicide and assures him that he was good to her and she appreciates that.

I could ruin the story and tell you each of the reasons, but I don't want to. I think the story is too intriguing for me to type out each of the reasons now and spoil the book.

Jay Asher, the author, also had a website created about the book which I think makes it a lot more interesting. You can read an excerpt of the book, a blog called 'Hannah's reasons' has been created, and my favourite of all the features is that you can listen to the tapes. Although that's pretty eerie, it brings a sense of realism to the story and I think that's brilliant!

To me, the story line just stands out as Jay has taken something that's been done many times before - a teenage girl committing suicide - and put a whole knew twist on it - telling the story through suicide notes. I loved this book so much that I used the structure and basic story line as the basis for a piece English coursework in year 12 - call me sad but I love it!

With the tagline 'There are thirteen reasons why your friend died. You are one of them', who wouldn't want to read it?!