Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher

This book is written in a very distinct style, one I don't think I have ever read before. It is told by the main character clay who is listening to cassette tapes sent to him anonymously. He listens to stories told by Hannah, a girl in his year at school who killer herself two weeks prior. She is telling her whole story.

Just the premise of this is amazing and as the whole point (or at lest I feel it is) of the book is to make people, especially teenagers, think about the repercussions of their careless actions, it makes Clay also questions his actions and reactions to each thing Hannah describes.
I found I was immediately drawn in to this book and I really wanted to know what could have happened to this young girl to make her want to commit suicide. Also to have have it told to you in this fashion, on audio suicide note, is transfixing.

The format of the cassette tapes and each 'chapter' being a side of a tape is a quaint and interesting way to go about telling the story. I must admit though that the jolting back and forth between Clay and Hannah's voices is very quick and at times extremely frustrating. Hannah is 'talking', so be quiet Clay, stop butting in to tell us stuff.

The second half of this book, from cassette 5 side A, gets a little dark and hard to listen to at times, although you are so engrossed there is no chance of pressing pause. Just a warning as it is very different to the first half where you can tell the characters are younger and things aren't as important.

This book has been on my to be read list for well over a year now and I'm so happy that I finally got around to reading/listening to it. It's very easy to listen to/read as it flows easily. I imagine the actual book with large spaces  between lines and large indents on all sides of the text. The narrators of the audio book, Debra Wiseman and Joel Johnstone, were great and Debra has a beautiful voice.

To think this book, which is told from a teenage girls perspective is written by a guy is mind blowing. He managed to get inside a young girls head so well that whilst listening to the book I was positive it must have been written by a woman.