Author: Jay Asher
Year: 2007
Length: 288 pages
Source: Owned
First Lines: "'Sir?' she repeats. 'How soon do you want it to get there?' I rub two fingers, hard, over my left eyebrow. The throbbing has become intense. 'It doesn't matter,' I say."
It took me far longer to read Thirteen Reasons Why than I ever expected. I certainly wanted to find out what happened, but it was just so sad. I could not bear to read it over the holidays. So I put it down for a few weeks. When I finally picked it back up in January, I finished it in a few sittings. About halfway through, Thirteen Reasons Why really grabbed hold and propelled me to finish as quickly as possible.
Thirteen Reasons Why is a difficult, but moving book. Suicide, especially by a teenager, is hard to understand. There is so much life left to live. To think that spark can be extinguished in an instant is frightening. In this story, Hannah explains exactly why she decided to kill herself, specifically recording thirteen reasons which correspond to various people in her life.
I cannot imagine being on the receiving end of one of those tapes. How do you handle knowing not only that you contributed to another person's suicide, but that that person also went to fairly extraordinary measures to ensure that you knew explicitly what you had done?
For me, this was the key point of Thirteen Reasons Why. Your actions, however inconsequential they may seem, impact others' lives for better or worse. Perhaps even more powerful is inaction. I think that sometimes the failure to act or speak on what we know is right may be even worse than acting or speaking upon that which we know is wrong.
Elie Wiesel said it best:
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.Choose to read Thirteen Reasons Why and choose to challenge yourself. Everyone matters. We can each make a difference in another life.
