City News

The novel “13 Reasons Why” by Jay Asher is a fictional book that tackles real-world problems through a high school story. The main protagonist, Clay Jensen, receives a box with cassette tapes which were recorded by a girl who had taken her own life, and in those tapes, she talks about the people that were responsible for her death. Not to spoil any more of the plot, moving on to my thoughts. This review will be mostly positive as I enjoyed the book for the most part. I believe that every high school student needs to read this book, it shows how much of an impact you or someone else has on another person’s life, it shows that your actions and words have consequences and you might be hurting someone without you even knowing. To avoid this ignorance, I highly recommend this book to everyone whether you are a student or an adult. Anyway, now digging deep into my likes and dislikes.

First of all, this book is extremely well written, Asher’s word choice is phenomenal which makes the plot easy to understand. In the novel, they move back and forth from what actually Clay hears in the tapes, to what he thinks and what goes on in the present. The tape’s audio is in italics so the reader knows that it is the tape which I like, but sometimes it can get a bit confusing and it sometimes ruins the flow of either side, but most of the time it flows perfectly and makes sense. Adding on to that I enjoy the parts when Clay listen to a statement the tape makes and then he responds to them in real life, I think that was really innovative and interesting which makes it worth while to read the book. I don't have anything negative to say about this novel except for maybe it can be inappropriate some times for some people, and that it can get confusing where the setting is and sometimes you might get lost or confused if you are reading the tapes or the actually story, which makes you have to go back and reread a couple of lines. My other critics are about the story itself but I won't indulge into that as it could be a spoiler for the storyline.

Other than that if don't have any other negative things to say about this but I will say that this book is not for the light hearted, it talks about some deep and disturbing topics which people might find disturbing. Again, this is an important book to read as it teaches about the affect you have on someones life. Overall, it is a mysterious, suspenseful, and sad book which you won't be able to put down. It is one of those book that would make you think about it even after you finished reading it, definitely worth reading twice. So yes, I would highly recommend for other teens to read this book as, even though it is a fictional novel, it can teach you how to be a better person and learn from the mistakes that were made by characters in the book.

Checkout Th1rteen R3asons Why from the Newport Beach Public Library.