Audio Book: Thirteen Reasons Why

Thirteen Reasons Why

by Jay Asher

Length: 6 hours, 24 minutes

Format: Audiobook
Price: Downloaded from Overdrive

How I heard about it: My girls have been reading this book right and left. It's also on my list.

Basic Premise: Clay Jensen receives an anonymous set of 7 cassette tapes in the mail. Amused (who listens to cassettes anymore?), he pops the first one in his dad's old stereo and discovers the tapes are the final thoughts of Hannah Baker, who killed herself two weeks ago. Each side of the tape includes a name - a reason why.

My Take: 8 out of 10 (scale here)
It's hard to say I liked this book, given the dark and gut-wrenching nature of the subject matter. It was well-written and formatted. Each side of the tape contained the name and story of one person whose interactions with her contributed to her decision to end her life. In most cases, people had done really terrible things to her. But a few of them were positive interactions, and for whatever reason, they weren't enough for Hannah to keep from giving up. It was an incredibly eye-opening story about what can happen when people feel beaten down, overlooked, and as if they have no way out. Several students popped into my mind at various points in the story, as did kids I went to high school with. It was a good book, but hard.

List Progress:

1. I Am Malala by Christina Lamb and Malala Yousafzai
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
5. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
6. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
7. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
8.  Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah review here
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Timeby Mark Haddon
10. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (read before I started blogging)
11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
13. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (read before I started blogging)
14. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
15. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
16. Bossypants by Tina Fey
17. Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
18. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (read before I started blogging)
19. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (read before I started blogging)
20. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen *abandoned*
21. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell review here
22. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
23. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - can we have a moment for whoever created this list? "Harry Potter" is not a book. It's a series of books. Sheesh.
24. Looking for Alaska by John Green review here
25. The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak review here
26. The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseini review here