Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (CBR-V #50)

Cannonball Read V: Book #50/52
Published: 2007
Pages: 304

Genre: Young Adult

Hannah is a high school student who committed suicide. Before she did it, she recorded 13 cassette tapes naming all of the people who contributed to her decision to end her life and why. If the people on the tapes don't pass them along to the next person the list, a second set of tapes will be made public. The book follows Hannah's classmate Clay and his experience listening to the tapes. 

I had really mixed feeling about this book. One one hand, I do get the point the author was trying to get across. You never know what is going on with someone else so try and treat people with a little decency and compassion. Unfortunately, decency and compassion aren't well-known traits among high-schoolers. 

On the other hand, I felt like Hannah was trying to justify her decision to commit suicide. Like it was okay because these were her reasons. But there is no justification for suicide. She tried to put all the blame on these other students when the blame should have been put on her obvious depression. 

I'm not trying to downplay how serious of an issue suicide is. It's terrible and awful for the people they leave behind. However, I didn't really feel that Hannah's high school experience was that abnormal. There were some rumors that spread about her and SHE made some bad decisions as well that ended up with consequences that she felt guilty about. Sounds like a pretty typical high school experience to me. 

Basically, I wish the book had focused more on the signs of suicide she was showing (change in appearance, giving away possessions, etc.) and why no one noticed. She even talked to the guidance counselor and showed some pretty disturbing signs of extreme depression. But no one thought to get her any help? The suicide probably couldn't have been prevented even if every single person on that list behaved differently. It might have been if someone had noticed Hannah's signs and gotten her real help. That was the real tragedy here. 

The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler (CBR-III #47)

Cannonball Read III: Book #47/52
Published: 2011
Pages: 356 (18,745 total pages so far)
Genre: Young Adult

It's 1996 and the Internet is new (remember that??). Do you also remember those AOL cds that everyone had at least 50 of? They made great coasters. Anyways, Emma gets this newfangled Internet thing at her house and pops in her free AOL cd. What does he find? Facebook. Actually, Facebook fifteen years in the future. She shows her neighbor (and former best friend -- they had a falling out after he professed his love to her and she didn't reciprocate the feelings), Josh. Together, they realize that they can find out what their future selves are up to and that they can alter the future by their current actions. Josh doesn't want things to change because he's married to the local "hot, rich girl". Emma, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have such a great future no matter how much she changes it.

This was a pretty fun read. I was eleven in 1996, so I remember most of what they were talking about. Sometimes the mid-90s referenced almost felt a little TOO forced (Really? You're wearing your Doc Martens with a floral dress? How 90s of you!). It's like they threw a bunch of stuff in there out of nowhere just to say HEY IT'S 1996, REMEMBER??? But if was fun if you remember those days. 

The names were very authentic to the time too. They even mentioned a guy who went to their school that had the exact same first and last name as a guy I was friends with in high school. I sometimes hate reading books where the main characters are in high school and have names like "Catcher" or even "Katniss" (which always made me think of catnip). I guess those "future" names...but geez. Everyone in the 90s went to school with an Emma or a Josh. BUT, Emma's last name was Nelson. If you've ever watched Degrassi, you'll know that a very main character for most of the show was named Emma Nelson. So throughout the whole book I kept picturing her as Degrassi Emma and her best friend was Manny in my head. You'd think the author would have at least Googled the character name to see if it was a fairly well-known name or not.

Overall, I liked the book though. The characters probably weren't as fleshed out as they should have been, but I'm just happy that there wasn't this huge love triangle story arc and the "romance" between Emma and Josh was kept to a minimum for a YA book. All the 90s references were fun to catch too.