Review: Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher

Another YA book (I must be on a kick lately), Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why is a story-within-a-story. A high school boy, Clay, receives a box in the mail from his crush, Hannah, who had killed herself days before. The box contains a cluster of cassette tapes, which tell the story of why Hannah lost hope and faith in life, along with instructions to listen to them and then pass them on to the next person on the list, and a threat that failure to do so will result in the public release of a second set of tapes that are being held by a secret someone who is in turn watching recipients to make sure the instructions are followed.

I found this book simultaneously interesting and unsatisfying. We learn about Hannah's first kiss, her family, the people she has met since moving to town at the beginning of the year, and how the thirteen people on her list have been involved in her decision to end her life. It's very voyeuristic and fascinating, finding out what this poor girl went through, and in some ways put herself through. I think what bothered me occasionally was the delivery of the story - while the events themselves seem realistic enough, the existence of the tapes, and Hannah's way of telling the story, aren't as much so. I don't think this is something that would bother YA readers, so it's not a big deal unless you're an adult. I did like how Hannah was both mature and immature, and the way that the characters interacted with each other, because they were dead-on high school behavior.

I wish that the story hadn't stopped where it did; the reader has no idea what happens once Clay is done listening to the tapes. Does he act on any of the information inside? What happens once everyone has listened? Does the truth get out? I mean, this is high school, and information gets out. I would have liked an epilogue, and I think it would have fit nicely into the story.

Like most YA fiction, TRW goes quickly, and I finished it in an afternoon. The further I got into the story, the more absorbed I was, and I didn't want to put it down until I knew the entire story, in the same way you can't look away from the scene of an accident. It was sort of like an I Know What You Did Last Summer meets an afterschool special.

Rating: four out of five stars: well-written YA fuction about an interesting topic