I jump from reading about one Hannah (in Non-Pratt's Trouble) to another. This time, it's not a teen pregnancy; instead, it's a teen suicide. I read uplifting books. While suicide isn't the most upbeat subject, this is one of the most inventively written books I've read.

Clay Jensen receives a package from Hannah Baker, who committed herself two weeks prior. There are multiple tapes within, each featuring audio of the thirteen reasons she committed herself. I'm lying; the parcel was actually sent by someone else who appears on the tapes. He steals a Walkman and spends the night listening to these tapes while walking about the city. Is that the only reason he obtained the tapes? Because he is one of the reasons Hannah committed suicide.

I picked up scents of a couple other novels while reading Thirteen Reasons Why, which I couldn't help but relate to Thirteen Reasons Why. Paper Towns by John Green was one of the first, as he follows this girl in the various locations she's marked and the clues she's left. Strangely, I keep comparing this novel to A Song for Ella Grey. Tragedy is just one word to describe why I'm doing this. Fans of any of them can rejoice!

The design of this book turned me off. The idea of utilizing symbols to indicate whether or not the cassettes are playing is good, and the usage of cassette numbers and Side A or B to indicate chapters is also nice, but the fact that anything Hannah is saying is indicated in italics just turns me off. It's more difficult to follow because Clay is also delivering commentary.

However, in the '13 Questions' interview at the end, the author, Jay Asher, stated that he got the idea for this book from museum multimedia guides. He thought it was odd that something does not present knew what they were talking about and that it was tied to what you were looking at. Why did I mention that to you? Because I believe that is the twist that distinguishes this novel. If this was just a book about why a girl committed suicide, it probably wouldn't be as compelling as it is. But it's the fact that Hannah, despite being deceased during the entire tale, is still present that makes Thirteen Reasons Why as perplexing as it is.

I'd like to conclude my evaluation by congratulating Jay Asher. This was a truly enjoyable and well-written read for me. I only found out about Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler's collaboration on The Future of Us while searching for it on Google.

Thirteen Reasons Why is not a romance. It's a story with its own dimension. And that is difficult to accomplish. And what about a film adaptation? Back in 2011, Universal said that Selena Gomez would play Hannah, and that's all we've heard. Keep an eye out, fangirls...