I downloaded this book a few years ago, when I first bought my Kindle, and it’s sat there, unread, ever since. I decided to read it now as my 52 in 52 Challenge for this week is a book with a number in the title.

This is a very sad story. I like how it starts out with the inciting incident — Hannah Baker’s suicide — then rolls back to the beginning of her story. Because, in order to understand why she did what she did, we have to see the whole picture. We have to understand that it wasn’t one incident or one person that drove her to take her life, but it was the combination of everyone and everything. The moral of the story is: our actions and our words count. They make a difference to other people. Sometimes, a good difference, sometimes, devastating. Especially upon teenagers because that is an age when all we want is to fit in and be accepted. We need friends. We need people around us to make us feel acceptable. And, when we get the opposite of all of this, our mental health suffers greatly. I know it’s not the same thing, but this made me think of the pandemic and the lockdowns we have all had to stick to. It’s good that there is social media to keep in contact with our friends, but it must have been so hard to be a teenager over the last couple of years. Not being able to physically visit friends must have been excruciating.

But, back to this book. This is Hannah Baker’s life story — she tells us this at the beginning. Before taking her life, she records a series of cassette tapes explaining why she did it and who she blames for her decision. There are 13 sides; one side for each person. The tapes are delivered to each person mentioned with a list of names so they are heard in the order she records them, and when that person finishes listening, they mail them to the next person on the list. When we first see the tapes, they are with Clay Jensen, a guy who was in love with Hannah, although, she had no idea.

As we go through each of the tapes, it is easy to see how blown up and massive everything feels when you are a teenager. You can’t see that the bad times will ever get better, and you can be super sensitive. That is definitely the case here. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of sympathy for Hannah. The people she addresses, Bryce, in particular, are hideous people. Courtney, also. I detested Courtney, and I really wanted to find her and tell her how disgusting her behaviour was. So, if I felt that, as an adult who knew it wasn’t even true, it is very believable that Hannah would have felt all the wounds deeply. Oh, and Mr Porter. He was despicable. The one person in the book who should have known better, who should have been able to help. Hannah tells him Bryce sexually assaulted her, and his advice is to move on?! I really hoped I would see his reaction to the tapes, but I didn’t.

I can’t say I enjoyed this book because it’s not that kind of book, but I appreciated its message. I think it is an important book that might just help kids who feel like they don’t matter. This book shows that everyone matters to someone. We just have to hold on and reach out. This is a really good YA.

Teens. It is YA in genre, and those are the people it could really reach out to. It's also a really good story. The way it is told, watching Hannah's life unravel, is clever. I think a lot of people will benefit from reading this.

The format of the tapes. I loved Tony. His character was fab. I really like the message this gives to young people. Actually, not just to young people, it's universal in its themes of fitting in and mental health issues.

Courtney. Hideous. Mr Porter. Disgusting and incompetent are the nicer words I can find for him. Bryce. Obviously. It's hard to find fault in the book. The only things I didn't like were certain characters, but that's how the author intended it. So it's not really a fault.

Watch the series.

Sad. Angry. Hopeful.

Jay Asher. I don't know anything else about him, I'm afraid.

It's a good reminder that we all suffer from mental health issues at some point. It makes us feel less alone.

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Created Nov 02, 2021 at 4:37am • Submit your own review...