Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers thirteen cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush who committed suicide two weeks earlier.

On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out how he made the list.

This book has been a must read for a while but I never had the mindset for it.  The whole concept seemed a bit morbid to me but also strangely interesting.  I finally just had to know why this girl killed herself.

Now I just want to say that this is not supposed to be some great insight into bullying or teen angst, just simply one girl and 13 problems that she just couldn't deal with anymore.

The format of this book was strange because the voice on the tapes kept being interrupted by Clay and his thoughts, actions and memories.  If it wasn't for the font change I don't think I would have been able to tell the difference.  But after you get into the groove of the book it gets easier to distinguish due to the nature of the information on the tapes.

I really did like the fact that this book doesn't mess around.  It gets right to the point.  In the first 30 pages Clay gets the tapes and begins to listen to them, eventually deciding to listen to them all in one night (exactly like I would have done).

As he moves through the tapes you get sucked up into Hannah's universe and I personally was waiting for the last straw.  The final act that made her commit suicide.  And when that finally happened it really hit home for me.  I was in shock for a while - even after the book ended.

I can't give this book 5 stars because of all the hype.  I haven't known anyone to dislike this book so I was expecting something AMAZING, but all I got was something great.  I was still satisfied with it though, so I can happily give it 4 stars.