13 reasons why

French edition : Le Livre de Poche de Jeunesse

American edition : Penguin Young Readers Group

Number of pages : 315

Genre : Coming of age story

Publication year : 2007 (America), 2010 (France)

Author : Jay Asher

Summary

    One evening, Clay receives a mysterious box with 7 cassettes tape inside. On those cassettes are recorded the 13 reasons of Hannah’s suicide. Each recording is dedicated to a person. As you can deduce, Clay is one of this person. But why ? What is he responsible of ? What did he do to Hannah to be on those cassettes ? Even him doesn’t know. Through those 13 recordings you’ll discover it. You'll also learn more about the truth , you’ll discover Hannah and also Clay.

Criticism

    First, let’s talk about the topic of this book. Suicide is an oppressive topic. Through Hannah’s world you can realize how far people are unhappy and sad to think about their death. Suicide is not a subject that is easy to deal with. However Jay Asher succeeds in because he makes us feel the pain of Hannah, her desperation but also, Clay’s rage and guilt. Those strong emotions make us understand entirely our 2 main characters. Their emotions are opposed but complementary, they are depending on them. Hannah’s emotions are in a certain way influencing the ones of Clay. Besides, each place given by Hannah in the book is a real key to learn more about Clay and her. Clay because he is alive and has memories in those places. And Hannah because it’s her who decided to mention it and told a story about it. It adds many other emotions to the story. 

    In this book the author’s way with word has a real importance, like in all books, but in this one it adds a real plus to the story. Indeed Jay Asher, succeeds in cheating us because we read Hannah sayings and then we have the thoughts of Clay, but while we are reading it, it seems to be only one person. And this is extremely clever because usually we can see the difference between the two characters and here it's not the case, we can only make a difference thanks to the print run. Our 2 main characters seem to be only one. Their complementarity is shown by this process, but the difference of print run reminds us that they are different, firstly because one is still alive and secondly because they have their own personality anyway. 

Final conclusion

This is not a firm favorite book because I find the subject really sad and oppressive. However suicide topic is well-treated, it gives us various point of view.

So are you going to read it ?

Other information

I’m sure you know it but there is a series about this book. Did you see it ? And if you did, what do you think about it ?

The song

Stay with me, Jack and Jack because they inspired themselves of the series and also because the topic is the same.

My note : 7/10

Characters : 1/2              My taste : 1/2

Story : 2/4                    Originality : 3/2