13 Reasons Why

This week I read 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher. This book was about a boy, who's a freshman in high-school named Clay who's crush and friend, Hannah, just committed suicide. Clay discovers a box full of old fashioned tapes on his doorstep in the evening. He plugs them in to his friends stolen cassette tape player and finds out that they are Hannah's last words, and Clay received the tapes because he is on a list full of people who Hannah is blaming for her suicide. Throughout the night, Clay travels around town to the places that Hannah tells him to go to, and listens to the 13 reasons why she committed suicide. Eventually he figures out that he must be one of these reasons, and waits to see what he ever did to Hannah.
This book was good, but didn't really live up to my expectations. I think that it did have a lot of potential, but really didn't set the tone well for a book talking about suicide. The world built around the characters wasn't that great, and the characters weren't that great, connectable, and didn't even have a personality. It would have been more effective if you had cared about Hannah a little bit more. It was sad, but a little bit phony-sad too, like it was trying to be sadder than it actually was, and didn't represent the suicide theme well, in my opinion. That being said, it was a good book, and worth reading if not fantastic. There are some mature topics, and the book is about suicide after all, but if you need a book to read, this would be a good one to consider. It also is not too long, and the reading level isn't that hard.