Quarter 2 Post 1

13 Reasons Why
Jay Asher

This week I read 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher. It's about a boy named Clay Jensen. One day Clay came home from school and found a mysterious box on his doorstep. He opened it up and found a series of tapes. Recorded on the tapes was Hannah Baker's story. Each tape tells stories about why Hannah committed suicide. Once you get the tapes you have to pass them on to the next person talked about on the tape. Clay listens to each story, following a map that was also included in the package. He goes to each different place as Hannah talks about it. He goes through a variety of emotions, sadness, anger, guilt, and hate. Each story is one of Hannah's deepest secrets, something she never told anybody else about. They talk about her first kiss, a list of hot girls and not girls, her ex-bestfriend and her first party. As Clay listens he keeps feeling sicker and sicker, trying to think of what he did wrong. All he can think of is a party where he started to make out with Hannah, but she freaked out at him. When it finally gets to his tape, his story, he finds out he did nothing wrong. Hannah had included him to apologize. She wanted him to know why she killed herself, that it wasn't in any way his fault. Even after hearing this Clay still feels like he could have done something to help her. Even though he already heard his story he keeps listening, until he gets to their english teacher/social worker's tape. Hannah went to talk to him the day before she killed herself and talks about him as her last hope. As she went in she started recording so that the conversation would be saved. She tells him she's been thinking about committing suicide and he doesn't really do much about it. He talks about how that would be a bad idea, but when Hannah leaves he doesn't do anything. The next day Hannah didn't go to school. He found out she committed suicide and didn't show up to school for a couple weeks.

I really liked this boook. It's really suspensful. A lot of the stuff that Hannah talks about is stuff that happens to a lot of teenagers every day. It makes you think about the little things that you do. Hannah talks about her ex friend Courtney. About how she used her for a ride to a party where she was going to drink. Hannah then talks about how she should have seen it coming, Courtney always said hi to everybody and was always nice but she never said bye. As if some people weren't good enough for a good bye even though Courtney seemed to treat them like they were great friends. It helped me realize that a lot of the little things you don't really think about can have a major affect on somebody else's life.