Book Report - 'Thirteen Reasons Why' by Jay Asher

I tend to avoid trending books and BookTok recommendations, but I was drawn to "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher out of a contrarian mood. I read an article that South Carolina recently became the state with the greatest number of banned books. Always one to oppose the banning of books and support the reading of banned books, I decided to look up some of the most banned books in the United States. The full list is included at the end for posterity. If you're looking for something to read, it's a good place to start.

The first on the list, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," seemed like a decent place to start but my local library didn't have it in circulation as an audio book. The second book (or rather, series) was "Captain Underpants." I'm not opposed to reading books intended for children, but I wasn't committing to an entire series, and the fact that "Captain Underpants" even made this list is frankly asinine. If the best use of your time is to go around banning popular children's books, do us all a favor and go check yourself into a nursing home. You can do less harm there.

The third book on the list was "Thirteen Reasons Why." I recognized it as a Netflix series that seemed to be pretty popular recently, but I had no idea it started as a book. It didn't seem particularly interesting to me, but the library had it available in audio book format and it was only 6 hours long. I figured it was a short enough investment that I could give it a shot and see what all the fuss was about.

Spoilers, in case you haven't seen the Netflix series and you've lived under a rock for the past few years; the general premise of the book is that a high schooler commits suicide and sends a series of cassette tapes to those who caused her to do so, her "thirteen reasons why." If that sounds needlessly melodramatic, it is. The narrator of the book is Clay, a recipient of Hannah Baker's suicide tapes. All 6 hours of this book alternate between Hannah explaining how any one person person contributed to her suicide and Clay exploring the town and visiting various landmarks described in Hannah's tapes.

I will credit Asher, it's a novel concept. Simply writing the content of the tapes without a frame story probably wouldn't provide enough context and might be prohibitively boring without anything to break up the tapes. In contrast, a student just reflecting on a classmate's recent suicide wouldn't be personal enough. Before the book even begins, the deed is done and Hannah is already dead. However, Clay spends much of the book wondering how he is related to the suicide. It allows for suspense, even after the death has already happened. It's a tactic I haven't often seen in books or other media.

However, don't let the praise for originality fool you into thinking I enjoyed the book. On the contrary, I found myself rolling my eyes multiple times per chapter. It just felt so cliche and trite. Clay's role in the story seemed to be more practical than narrative. He stumbles upon a photo when Hannah's tapes just so happen to coincidentally mention the photo immediately after. Clay's emotions and reactions almost seem like audience cue cards, dictating how the reader should feel. If your book needs to tell you what emotions it should elicit, maybe it isn't very good at eliciting those emotions.

Probably my biggest complaint about the book is the inability of the characters to just effectively use their words. There's an annoying amount of "why did you do what I said and not what I actually wanted?" Sure, I realize that's a thing that people do in real life as well, but it's idiotic. If you can't properly express your wants and needs, that's a you problem. Literally, this is a direct quote from the book: "I did what she asked and I left. When I should have stayed." Maybe it's intended to play up the teen drama aspect, but I just couldn't handle it.

My concern about "Thirteen Reasons Why" is the same concern that I have about "Criminal Minds," it could give people ideas. Someone who is already seriously considering suicide might take inspiration from the book or Netflix series and do something similar. By no means do I think that gives enough reason to ban the book, but I do think readers should be cautious about that possibility. If you notice your friends reading it, maybe go out of your way to check on their mental health just to be safe.

And that leads me to my main positive takeaway from this book: our actions can have a real and tangible effect on those around us. It doesn't cost a thing to be nice and to stick up for someone, and that behavior can be the difference between suicide and someone living another day. I don't at all mean that we should go about our lives worried that every person around us might be on the verge of ending it all. Besides, the world can be a cruel and unforgiving place sometimes, and there isn't much that we can do to fix that on a global level. However, tiny contributions can add up to make significant differences, and the world would be a better place if we were more cognizant of our actions and how that affect others.

Banning books because they MIGHT make someone consider suicide is a bad idea and a slippery slope. For any single banned book, two more are eventually going to take its place with similar themes and content. Instead of banning, it could be a better idea to include disclaimers for certain content, and ensure that readers are prepared to deal with that. Couple that with a healthy dose of therapy and other mental help, and I think we get a more mentally healthy society that is more equipped to read these books regardless of their content and have healthy conversations about them afterward.

Regardless of how I personally felt about "Thirteen Reasons Why," it absolutely SHOULD NOT be banned. Banning books isn't the answer, ever, for anything. As Jon Rosenthal put it, "Those who seek to ban books are never on the right side of history. Never." If anyone tells you that you shouldn't read a particular book, you should go out of your way to read it as quickly as possible before they take it from you permanently. Here are a few recommendations:

1 “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie

2 “Captain Underpants” (series) by Dav Pilkey

3 “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher

4 “Looking for Alaska” by John Green

5 “George” by Alex Gino

6 “And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

7 “Drama” by Raina Telgemeier

8 “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E. L. James

9 “Internet Girls” (series) by Lauren Myracle

10 “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison

11 “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini

12 “Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins

13 “I Am Jazz” by Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel

14 “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky

15 “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

16 “Bone” (series) by Jeff Smith

17 “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls

18 “Two Boys Kissing” by David Levithan

19 “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo” by Jill Twiss

20 “Sex is a Funny Word” by Cory Silverberg

21 “Alice McKinley” (series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

22 “It’s Perfectly Normal” by Robie H. Harris

23 “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult

24 “Scary Stories” (series) by Alvin Schwartz

25 “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson

26 “A Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley

27 “Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out” by Susan Kuklin

28 “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck

29 “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood

30 “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas

31 “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” by Alison Bechdel

32 “It’s a Book” by Lane Smith

33 “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain

34 “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien

35 “What My Mother Doesn’t Know” by Sonya Sones

36 “A Child Called ‘It’” by Dave Pelzer

37 “Bad Kitty” (series) by Nick Bruel

38 “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins

39 “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich

40 “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi

41 “The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby” by Dav Pilkey

42 “This Day in June” by Gayle E. Pitman

43 “This One Summer” by Mariko Tamaki

44 “A Bad Boy Can Be Good For A Girl” by Tanya Lee Stone

45 “Beloved” by Toni Morrison

46 “Goosebumps” (series) by R.L. Stine

47 “In Our Mothers’ House” by Patricia Polacco

48 “Lush” by Natasha Friend

49 “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger

50 “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker

51 “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon

52 “The Holy Bible”

53 “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson

54 “Eleanor & Park” by Rainbow Rowell

55 “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer

56 “Gossip Girl” (series) by Cecily von Ziegesar

57 “House of Night” (series) by P.C. Cast

58 “My Mom’s Having A Baby” by Dori Hillestad Butler

59 “Neonomicon” by Alan Moore

60 “The Dirty Cowboy” by Amy Timberlake

61 “The Giver” by Lois Lowry

62 “Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank

63 “Bless Me, Ultima” by Rudolfo Anaya

64 “Draw Me a Star” by Eric Carle

65 “Dreaming In Cuban” by Cristina Garcia

66 “Fade” by Lisa McMann

67 “The Family Book” by Todd Parr

68 “Feed” by M.T. Anderson

69 “Go the Fuck to Sleep” by Adam Mansbach

70 “Habibi” by Craig Thompson

71 “House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende

72 “Jacob’s New Dress” by Sarah Hoffman

73 “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov

74 “Monster” by Walter Dean Myers

75 “Nasreen’s Secret School” by Jeanette Winter

76 “Saga” by Brian K. Vaughan

77 “Stuck in the Middle” by Ariel Schrag

78 “The Kingdom of Little Wounds” by Susann Cokal

79 “1984” by George Orwell

80 “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess

81 “Almost Perfect” by Brian Katcher

82 “Awakening” by Kate Chopin

83 “Burned” by Ellen Hopkins

84 “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card

85 “Fallen Angels” by Walter Dean Myers

86 “Glass” by Ellen Hopkins

87 “Heather Has Two Mommies” by Lesle´a Newman

88 “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou

89 “Madeline and the Gypsies” by Ludwig Bemelmans

90 “My Princess Boy” by Cheryl Kilodavis

91 “Prince and Knight” by Daniel Haack

92 “Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology” by Amy Sonnie

93 “Skippyjon Jones” (series) by Judith Schachner

94 “So Far from the Bamboo Grove” by Yoko Kawashima Watkins

95 “The Color of Earth” (series) by Tong-hwa Kim

96 “The Librarian of Basra” by Jeanette Winter

97 “The Walking Dead” (series) by Robert Kirkman

98 “Tricks” by Ellen Hopkins

99 “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” by Sarah S Brannen

100 “Year of Wonders” by Geraldine Brooks