I read this after the tv show. It definitely made me think. Made me think about how I felt in high school myself. What it just be like to feel like the only way out is suicide. Very thought provoking. Written well. I think the writing was very good and would recommend reading the book over the tv show. I think the words have more impact.

Loved this book. Read it in just two sittings. Flowed well and was nice to read a different style of writing. My first by this author but will definitely be on the look out for more.

Prior to watching the Netflix series, I requested this book. However, since doing further research and watching the first series of THIRTEEN REASONS WHY, I will not be reading this, and I implore you to look further before reading this book. As someone working in a secondary school, the idea that someone who kills themselves is able to blame others is tragic.

This is a very difficult subject to cover which I feel the author manages with gentleness and kind spirit- there's no denying that the mystery is purely addictive.

I just want to start by saying if suicide is a trigger warning this book is a big no no for you.

This book is centred around a girl that couldn’t take anymore and took her life and sent tapes to those she thought responsible.

It’s a fascinating book but also not, it was a weird one. I enjoyed it but I didn’t, it kinda threw me.

This book comes with some warnings. It is really hard to read as it is from the perspective of Hannah Baker who committed suicide. The story is told through thirteen reasons she gives.
It really makes you think about why our interactions may harm someones mental wellbeing. I found it a hard read but would recommend it for teens and parents of teens.

The book is more fast paced than the show that I enjoyed watching on TV. I always prefer a book and in this case I find them sort of equal.
I feel that this sends out a conflicting message to teens and young people. On the one hand how people treat you can and does affect our lives and mental health but also we should be really looking at how much we should not be letting others rule our lives quite so much. Its a classic ott teen book that I think will resonate with a lot of people even those who are not teens any longer. Its worth a read but equally I could leave it on the shelf..

Thirteen Reasons Why was highly recommended by the owner of our local independent book store. My initial reaction was that a book elucidating the retrospective reflections of a teen named Hannah Baker who committed suicide was nothing more than another way for the machine of large publishing to push morose stories on an already angst-ridden teen audience. The book store owner assured me, however, that the story was well-constructed and poignant. I bought the book more out of curiosity than enthusiasm.


As usual for me, I didn’t read much about the book before beginning. The introduction, in which Clay Jensen, who had a crush on Hannah, mails a mysterious package to a classmate, did capture my interest. Author Jay Asher created a voice for the narrator that was both naturalistic and un-selfconscious.

As for Hannah, the stories she posthumously revealed were mundanely realistic. The very quotidian nature of her complaints, however, caused me to become irritated with her maudlin reaction to every small insult. About halfway through the story, I asked myself “is this really it”? Could Hannah have actually killed herself over this sequence of embarrassing, but not devastating events? It took me some time to recognize this was part of the point.

My first realization in this regard had to do with the psychology of depression and adolescence. Hannah’s accounts of her “torturous” existence revealed her underlying assumption that every action of the other kids at school in regard to her was about her and that she was somehow central to the other students’ attention. In truth, it seemed that Hannah’s schoolmates were themselves too caught up in their own life stories to give much thought to Hannah and her experiences.

What I did not appreciate until near the end of the book was how little any of us (the reader, the narrator, the other kids at Hannah’s school) knew about Hannah Baker. Intermittently, Hannah referred to difficulties her family was having at home. She alluded to the fact that she had issues regarding financial instability, but she never elaborated enough to fulfill our desire to put additional context to her ultimate decision to end her life.

This last thought was what made the book haunt me for several days after reading it. It caused me to question the back story of everyone I encountered and to ask myself what I was contributing to the fabric of their day.

If anything, Thirteen Reasons Why gives teens the opportunity to evaluate the way in which their behaviors impact others and interact with other things in their lives that they neither have knowledge of nor understand. With so much education in the schools focused on bullying, I recommend Thirteen Reasons Why for teens to develop foresight in terms of their potential impact on others.

This book could have been brilliant, if it hadn’t been for the suicide aspect.

That might sound stupid, because even if you don’t know anything about Thirteen Reasons Why you likely know that it’s a book about suicide, but my point is that it doesn’t have to be.

In Thirteen Reasons Why we follow “nice guy” Clay Jensen. Everyone loves Clay. He’s wonderful. However, his world is flipped upside down when he receives a box of thirteen tapes in the mail. The tapes are from his classmate Hannah, who recently died by suicide, and the tapes explain the reasons why she decided to end her life – all thirteen of them.


Clay is sure he wasn’t really meant to receive the tapes, because he didn’t do anything wrong to Hannah! But he also can’t ignore her last wishes, so he embarks on a journey to learn the truth behind Hannah’s pain.

The issues I had with this book are spoilery, so if you haven’t read it and still feel interested by it then feel free to keep on scrolling.

Hannah didn’t need to die for this story to be impactful. A story of a victim getting revenge can be powerful without the victim dying by their own hand. The threat of a second set of tapes circulating that will get leaked if the recipients don’t follow Hannah’s instructions to the letter gives the plot high stakes by itself, so Hannah’s death feels like a cop out. Wouldn’t this story be more interesting if she outed her abusers to each other and then stood back and watched them tear each other apart in an attempt to keep their secrets? Yes, Hannah would be in danger, but it would add much more tension to the plot and make the story far more interesting.

That being said, I just don’t think Jay Asher knew what he was doing with this story. Hannah’s character is all over the place, and she switches quickly from being a victim to being a bystander enabling abusers to get away with their actions while all the time pretending to have a backbone. Most of the events of Thirteen Reasons Why are completely unfeasible (which is probably why it made for such a popular TV adaptation – who doesn’t love wild and wacky teen drama shows like Pretty Little Liars or Riverdale?!).

Another issue I have with Thirteen Reasons Why is that Clay is completely right: he shouldn’t have received the tapes. Hannah herself says that he’s a nice guy and she shouldn’t have sent them to him! The choice to narrate things from Clay’s perspective detracts from the impact of the novel. The majority of the other twelve people who receive the tapes have done heinous things to Hannah, and seeing their reactions to receiving the tapes – anger, denial, remorse and guilt – would have been much more interesting than following a “nice guy” like Clay.

The only reason we should have been following Clay would have been if the tapes had had the reverse impact on him: if he’d gone from being a “nice guy” to being hellbent on revenge and determined to destroy all of Hannah’s bullies and tormentors. Instead the sole change to his personality is him finally being brave enough to talk to girls, which means the only impact Hannah’s tapes had on him was the ability to forget about her and move on with someone else. Bleurgh.

I think the most frustrating thing about Thirteen Reasons Why is that it had SO MUCH POTENTIAL. I absolutely loved the first quarter of the novel, because the pacing is impeccable. It’s almost as though Clay and Hannah are having a conversation, because his mental asides are interspersed between her tape dialogue and it makes for such interesting reading. Unfortunately as soon as it starts to fall apart, it does so SPECTACULARLY.

Definitely one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

I don't often rate books one star, but I really, really didn't enjoy this. My issue isn't that this is a book about bullying and suicide. Books can be about those things. I'm just really unhappy with the way this was dealt with.

I requested this because of how popular the book and the Netflix show were, but after hearing some things about its content and some of the themes, I wasn't so interested to read it. But thank you very much for accepting me to read it.

I liked the concept but the execution was off for me. It’s a sensitive subject and needs to be executed perfectly.

I absolutely loved this book. What an eye opener. In Thirteen Reasons Why we listen to audio tapes that was sent to 13 people by Hannah who committed suicide, to explain her reasons why.

Personally I thought it was amazingly done and very realistic. There weren't any embellishments or glorifications, it was true portrayal of teen suicide. We go through the story with Clay while he is listening to Hannah's tapes. The narration goes back and forth between the tapes and what Clay is doing/thinking. I really though this was a great way to pace the story and build up the suspense. And every single page is full of suspense. I really could have stayed up all night reading it.

The story contains a lot of emotions; Intense and raw emotions. We go through them with Hannah as well as Clay, simultaneously. Hearing her tapes makes us realize that our actions, however small, can have a whirlwind of an effect on others. Yes, sending those tapes may have been a little mean. But obviously there was a lot going on with Hannah and she needed to get this out. I don't condone her for it, but I can understand why she thought it necessary.

It's not an easy subject to talk about, and suicide is not something to take lightly. Asher did an amazing job of taking a sensitive subject and writing a very touching, mesmerizing novel.

Definitely a good next step for fans of the Netflix adaption. Always interesting to see how the book differs from the adaptation

With this book I liked the idea of the different narrations, but I did often get quite muddled between them (as I often do with dual narration). I do think suicide is a topic that should be more addressed, especially in the YA community, but having read a lot of mixed reviews I'm not sure how successful this book is. I personally have never dealt with depression so I can't really offer insight. I didn't hate this book, but I also didn't love it. I thought the idea was good, and it was a gripping read, but something in the execution just fell short.

WOW A huge thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Publishing and Jay Asher could not stop reading this page turner as needed to know what happened next.

I absolutely loved this book and such an amazing way of dealing with a delicate subject as suicide and the effect it has on the people we leave behind. It was written in such a likable way without being morose and also draws the reader into seeing how much a persons mental health can affect with how they deal with life situations.

Compelling and thought provoking. This book tackles issues that are very prevalent for any teenager.

I'm sorry, I wished for this book on a whim but then found that it wasn't to my taste, as I don't normally read YA contemporary.
Sorry for any inconvenience and I will be more careful with my wishes in the future.

I purposefully held off reading (and then watching) this until all the hype had died down.

This book covers the topics of suicide, bulling, rape, drug and alcohol abuse. And it also just goes to show how much society as a whole, turns a blind eye at these topics. For Hannah she did speak out about feeling suicidal towards the end only to be told to "get over it and move on" - honestly I wanted to grab Mr Porter and slap him silly. Even when she went for help, her last hopes were dashed when she was told that, so she felt she had no choice to end her life.

There were 13 tapes, 13 reasons and 13 people that could have stopped her from ending her life but each and everyone attributed to her wanted to die in the first place. Apart from Clay, he did to an extent but in my eye it was stupidity of not saying what he felt at the time that was his downfall.

I would say if you are having suicidal thought please do not read this, please seek help and don't let anyone tell you to "get over it and move on"!

A moving story which makes you think about how your actions effect others.
I’ve read this after watching the Netflix show and think that the show is very true to the book - reading it or watching it gives you the same end result.
Thanks to Netgalley and Razorbill for the copy.