80 Books No.8: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

I’m going to out myself as a Daily Mail website reader here by linking to this article in which they worry about the trend for ‘sick-lit’ aimed at young people. Thirteen Reasons Why, according to the DM, breaks the taboo about teen suicide. I do find it fascinating that it took until 2013 for the writer of this article to actually become aware of this book that was published in 2007, but let’s set that heel-dragging aside and focus upon the book itself, and whether it deserves to be labelled ‘sick-lit’.

I read a lot of teen fiction, mainly fantasy driven novels, partially because they are about all I concentrate on during term time: witness how long The Stand took me to read. I also actually enjoy them for what they are, maybe because in my head I’m still fifteen and quite melodramatic. I’ve read all The Hunger Games, the Chaos Walking trilogy and any Sarah Dessen I can get my hands on. Thirteen Reasons Why has been on my list of ‘want-to-reads’ for a while and just so happened to be written by somebody whose surname began with an ‘A’ and so came to hand when I started my newest trawl of the library shelves. It took me about four hours to read so from a progress point of view, it was clearly something which kept me hooked.

So, to the story: Hannah Baker kills herself. Weeks later, Clay receives a package of audio tapes on which she has recorded a message for thirteen people: the thirteen people she perceives to have been instrumental in her decision to take her own life. Clay is one of them and must listen to them before passing them on to the next person, or the whole school will hear all of the tapes. As a premise, it’s pretty adventurous; Asher sets up a dual narrative which interweaves in a way I’ve never seen before. The very fact that you already know Hannah is dead and therefore nothing Clay does will stop that should make the book less compelling, but somehow it didn’t. I still really wanted to know what Clay had done to force her down that path.

Of course, the very nature of these thirteen reasons raise issues over whether it is fair to blame anybody for someone’s suicide. My opinion is, no, never, but then Hannah is a teenager. Teenagers habitually blame others for their mistakes, and whilst no-one on Hannah’s tapes seems to have done anything too awful (apart from her 12^th reason), it’s a lesson for everybody in how what we do affects everybody else: the Butterfly Effect in some ways; It’s a Wonderful Life in others. Certainly, her thirteenth reason made me think about what I’d do in that situation, and it was a little uncomfortable.

The Daily Mail article suggests that books like these might lead teenagers to be depressed or even to attempt similar acts of violence themselves. I sincerely doubt that. Romeo and Juliet has never been proven to have a direct impact upon people’s actions after all. What’s more, Thirteen Reasons Why does not glorify suicide – Clay himself as narrator repeatedly asserts his anger with Hannah for what she’s done and how she’s trying to implicate others in it. But this book just might make people think twice about what they do, which can only ever be a good thing for young people.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about this book is that the film is supposedly in production to be released this year - with Selena Gomez in the role. Sheesh.