🟥 Thirteen Reasons Why (2007) Review - Nice Guy™ Writes a Book | Book Waffle

Thirteen Reasons Why (2007) written by Jay Asher

I couldn't give two hoots whether a book "romanticizes suicide" or "gives a voice to teens in need". I just care about if a story is good or not, and this book most certainly is not.

Before we get to far into this whole spiel, let's quickly go over what this book is about. Thirteen Reasons Why revolves around a high schooler named Clay Jensen. One day Clay receives a number of record tapes from a girl in his class that committed suicide, Hannah Baker. On playing the first tape, Clay is treated to the voice of the deceased as she explains that each of the tapes contains a "reason why" she killed herself.

Spooky. Should've been a horror. Like some Sadako Yamamura shit. Would have been all over that. Unfortunately, though, we aren't that lucky.

So bear with me, dear reader, and allow me to give you my own reasons why this book was horrible. Apologies for not making thirteen to fit the theme. Let's imagine that I stretched for anything to reach that magic number just like Hannah Baker did.

#1 - The Narrative Voice sucks. Seriously. Could it be more boring? More grating?

#2 - The Flow is awful. The protagonist constantly injecting his own dull and annoying thoughts into the tapes hurts an already schizophrenic structure.

#3 - The Mystery is uninteresting. Some girl named Hannah killed herself. Okay? And I should care because...? That's an all right hook, but far from good enough to make me want to slog through 50k words of petty teenage drama. Homegirl, there are kids in Africa starving right now. Seriously, though. Who the hell is Hannah Baker? I feel like I still don't know, let alone care.

#4 - The Characters are all the same. And by that I mean that they are all comically awful cliches of teenage life. Boys are pervs. Girls are manipulative. Most go out of their way to be cruel. Etc. Etc. And Mr. Protagonist? He's the #NiceGuy insert of the author. Ironic given the sexual misconduct allegations, isn't it?

#5 - The Logic is laughable. People are responsible for their own actions, but Hannah is a butterfly effect extremist. She has to blame everyone for the stupidest reasons even if they are not directly responsible. An art critic who critiqued young Adolf's painting skills? Basically responsible for the Holocaust.

And I guess I should address the controversy. Does this book romanticize suicide? Well, yes. It obviously does. If a hopeless teen commits suicide to "get back at" people when they feel powerless, then this is that revenge fantasy played out to a tee. 

"You're to blame for my suicide because you didn't try hard enough to stop me!"

Pretty vile mindset to put on a pedestal, dontcha think? Which, whatever. Idgaf. Write what you wanna write. But don't pretend it's something it's not.

At least the prose is mechanically acceptable. And I do think that some scenes were fine in isolation. So that's something at least. Oh! And the book had the decency to be fairly short instead of making me suffer. I liked that.

🟥 Rating: 2/10