13 Reasons Why - Thoughts?

[mya]

Thoughts on the February book of the month?

[Georgia]

Overall i enjoyed '13 Reasons Why', it was a fast easy read that I flew through. I think that the concept of the novel was interesting and unique and i never tired from the story. A couple of things however lowered my rating. Without spoiling anything i truly was expected this book to blow me away with so many different emotions and i thought it was really going to hit me hard. Unfortunately i came out underwhelmed, i didn't feel anything for the book after i finished it, i just kinda threw it aside and was like 'okay i'm done'. This is defiantly not what i expected to feel after reading a book about suicide. It was just missing that extra hit if emotions and some sort of overwhelming sensation to make me feel for the characters situation and it just wasn't there for me. Other than this though, i really did enjoy the book and the characters.

[Georgia]

Btw my final rating would be 3.5 stars but because you can't to that its 4.

[Emily]

No spoilers.

13 Reasons Why. The concept of this book was really intriguing and I was really interested in reading it. However, my view has dramatically changed since reading the book.

While I did enjoy the book, there were a few things for me that made it lack 5 stars. First was the point of view. Whilst reading the book, I was immediately confused as to who was talking/who's P.O.V is was, whether it was Hannah or Clay. Sometimes I would have to read whole paragraphs, even whole pages, again for me to understand. Going along with P.O.V's, I found at points that Clay's commentary was unnecessary and even annoying, especially when reading the climax of a tape. Or that he would be talking about something completely different to the tapes.

Next, was the reasons why she committed suicide. I understand that to some the reasons Hannah mentioned can affect people who are suicidal/have mental issues, but Hannah, as far we know, didn't have any suicidal tendencies/mental health issues previous to the list. I don't think that the reasons were substantial enough for her to justify killing herself since the reasons were so petty and minor. But in saying that, I do understand that Jay Asher was trying to highlight that even the smallest of things can push someone over the edge.

Finally, the tapes themselves. The tapes were the main intrigue of the story and it was a new way (kind of) of presenting suicide in a book. I had 2 problems with the tapes. The first being that I don't feel like it was necessary for Hannah to have sent them to Clay. By that point I felt like she was just looking for someone to blame even though Clay really did nothing wrong. Secondly, I don't think the title "13 Reasons Why" is very fitting as I don't see Clay as a reason, nor the person mentioned on the last tape, either.

Besides that, I did enjoy it and I found it was quite an easy read. For all the hype it has, though, I really didn't see what all the rage was about and I was really disappointed by the anticlimactic ending.

Emily.

[mya]

13 Reasons Why - Jay Asher.

This book, while being heavily praised and intriguing, was one of the worst pieces of fiction I have ever read.

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