Thirteen Reasons Why

Written by Jay Asher

Synopsis: You can't stop the future. You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret...is to press play.
Clay Jensen doesn't want anything to do with the tapes Hannah Baker made. Hannah is dead. Her secrets should be buried with her.
Then Hannah's voice tells Clay that his name is on her tapes--and that he is, in some way, responsible for her death.
All through the night, Clay keeps listening. He follows Hannah's recorded words throughout his small town...
...and what he discovers changes his life forever.

My Confession: I assumed this book was going to be heavy as soon as I picked it up. The back cover does a pretty good job summarizing that no matter what else you learn from the almost-300-page novel, a girl killed herself. That's a plot point that cannot be undone. No matter how attached you become to her character, no matter how sympathetic you feel toward her situation, she's still dead. Nothing changes that.

I didn't foresee this as a problem. Okay, so the girl's dead. No big, right? That's the whole point of a story--it's not real. Curiosity made me pick this up, and even though the subject surpassed morbid, I felt like I could keep a healthy barrier between myself and the story that was about to unfold before me.

Wrong.

Numerous times I felt myself biting back moments of pure rage. Moments where, like the main character Clay--who's forced to listen to the tapes even though he cared greatly about Hannah--I wanted to stuff my fist in my mouth and scream against the barrier. The "thirteen reasons" Hannah purposefully overdoses on pills never feels justified, but I sure as hell felt her pain. And I almost understood why she did it. Almost.

Talk it out: There's a lot to be learned from a book like this. Nowhere is teenage life glorified. Parties are the smelly, sweaty, uncomfortable, claustrophobic spaces we all remember from adolescence but choose to remember as the "glory days." The bubbly, pretty, popular girls are represented as the fake, condescending, image-obsessed people they are. Hannah takes the mystique and sheen off the pretty high school picture painted by the ignorant, those who choose to believe everything they see and hear at face value. In the end, rumors killed Hannah Baker. And while I still walk away from this desperately wanting her to choose differently, her suicide was the only way to make this story pack the powerful punch it did. I dare someone to not feel something after reading this. No teenager could, or should, be the same after reading this. Maybe, in real life, people will be able to identify the warning signs sooner than those around Hannah were able to. Maybe this book can save a few lives, if only by allowing people to hear Hannah's story.

Recommendation: Have I ever thought seriously about suicide? No. Have I ever felt that no one around me gave a shit about whether I lived or died? Yes. But this book shows how a no to the first question can turn to a yes. I was never truly in danger of that happening to me, which is perhaps why a small barrier remains between myself and the heart of this story. I cannot comprehend that suicide is the right answer, ever. Nothing in life can ever be that bad. And even though we, as readers, learn Hannah's motives, and sympathize with the events that led her to such a final act, my hope is that more readers than not find Hannah's actions terrible. An act that they themselves could never foresee turning to.

I was bullied. I know how alone you can feel. Like you're the only person in a room full of crowded people who know each other, but can't--and won't--spare you a second glance. Use this book to keep an eye out for people on the fringe, people who seem okay, but your gut tells you something's wrong. If anything, read this book because it's real. And terrifying. And sad. Read it because it can teach you something. Read it because the next time you see someone with their head hanging low, you have the chance to save their life. All Hannah needed was someone to believe in. She finds it in Clay, but only after she's convinced herself that dying is her only option. Be someone's Clay.

Listen to Hannah's thirteen tapes here.

If you, or anyone you know is thinking or talking about suicide, go here. There's help out there. Don't let what happened to Hannah happen to you or someone you love.

Rating: 4.5/5

288 pages, published by Razorbill (Oct. 18, 2007)

I'd Know You Anywhere

Written by Laura Lippman

Synopsis: "There was your photo, in a magazine. Of course, you are older now. Still, I'd know you anywhere."
Suburban wife and mother Eliza Benedict's peaceful world falls off its axis when a letter arrives from Walter Bowman. In the summer of 1985, when Eliza was fifteen, she was kidnapped by this man and held hostage for almost six weeks. Now he's on death row in Virginia for the rape and murder of his final victim, and Eliza wants nothing to do with him. Walter, however, is unpredictable when ignored--as Eliza knows only too well--and to shelter her children from the nightmare of her past, she'll see him one last time.
But Walter is after something more than forgiveness: he wants Eliza to save his life...and he wants her to remember the truth about that long-ago summer and release the terrible secret she's keeping buried inside.

My Confession: It's been a long time since I read, and really got into, a thriller story. But as soon as I read the basic synopsis of this book, I was hooked. I've always found abduction stories fascinating, perhaps because an author who can create a sympathetic antagonist is special and should be read. But mainly because these types of stories always feel like puzzles, and if I just pay careful enough attention, I can solve it before it's over.

This book didn't quite live up to that expectation. I was really excited to read it. The idea that Eliza had suppressed something horrible that happened during those six weeks and now had to relive it in order to possibly save her abductor--that's pretty powerful stuff. And it would have been, if there'd been a secret at all. There wasn't. If anything, it was a misunderstanding, a matter of semantics. Hardly something that Eliza had purposefully been hiding. My mind had initially jumped to a bunch of crazy conclusions--was she an accomplice? Did she kill that last girl? I was waiting for the promised suspense and "thrilling" conclusion. It just never came.

Slow Burn: There were numerous times where this story moved painfully slow. I liked the idea of jumping from the present time, with Eliza taking care of her children, to the past--1985, to be exact--when Elizabeth was forcibly in the company of Walter Bowman. But it just read like wading through quicksand. It was too slow for a suspense novel. I wasn't waiting in anticipation to see what was going to happen; I already knew what happened, and I guess I was just waiting to see how Lippman was going to write about it. I didn't get chills, didn't feel anxious, and slept like a baby after finishing it.

So, Stephen King--whose bombastic praise is slapped across the cover--I disagree. I don't find this "the best suspense novel of the year." Far from it. If there is praise to be heaped on this book, it comes in the portrayal of the abductor. Walter Bowman is one of the most complex characters I've ever read, and the way I was able to crawl into his head and almost understand what he was doing and why--that's creepy. His carefully planned manipulation of Eliza--creepy. The fact that when he's on death row, and the morality of the death penalty is constantly called into question, I still couldn't make up my mind whether he deserved to die or not--that's unnerving. That's where I wish this book had gone. I wish it had explored further the elements that made my skin crawl. There was too much narrative, too much story, and not enough sweaty-palms fear.

Recommendation: As far as thrillers go, I was nowhere near as uncomfortable as I should have been reading this. In fact, I could put it down, and did numerous times. It just wasn't very magnetic. There wasn't a big conclusion, a gigantic twist that no one saw coming. It all built to this big "secret" that Eliza was hiding, and it turned out there was no secret at all. Too much information was given to the reader, and since the road was blindingly lit and not dark and twisted, I navigated a little too well.

Rating: 2/5

373 pages, published by William Morrow (Sept. 1, 2010)