A family tragedy which is slowly revealed in the story has torn her family apart.  Her father is out on an inopportune extended business trip and calls all the time but when he does Mazzy just hangs up on him.  He has no idea how bad things have gotten at home.  Her mother is severely depressed and lies in bed comatose every day.  This leaves Mazzy very much on her own with neighbors who do try to look out after her.  Social services is also suspicious and Mazzy has to deal with the stress of trying to keep her family together – at least what’s left with it.

Everything is Fine is told in a very sparse prose.  A style which I found refreshing but many might find disconcerting.  It’s also told through the random stream of conscience of Mazzy.

He calls back and I let it ring.
He calls back again and I let it ring.
He calls back again and I finally answer.
He says:  Mazzy, I am going to say one more thing and then you can hang up.nes
I pick my toenail and lie on the couch.
He says: Your mom and I love you very -
But then I hang up again.
A rerun of Judge Judy is on.

Dad and Mom used to dance.
Late at night when we were supposed to be asleep.
Mom would throw back her head and laugh and Dad would pick her up.
“Stop it, Dave,” she’d say.
“What?” And he twirled her around and around.
“You’re going to to hurt your back.”"Well, I guess I should stop, then,” he’d say, and keep twirling and twirling and twirling.
I used to lay on the floor and watch them from the hallway.
Watch them laugh.
I’d lay there until maybe Dad saw me and he’d say, “Well, looks like someone is in big old trouble,” and I’d scream “No!” and he’d put Mom on the couch, and her face.  I can see her face.
All giggly.
I’d start down the hall but he’d catch me.  He always catught me and then it was me laughing and twirling and everything was how it was supposed to be.
My mom  used to love my dad and my dad used to love my mom.
And they both used to love me.
He went for a one-week audition for ESPN 360.  One week became forever.

This book was so odd and so touching.  The whole time, I was reading it I kept thinking, this book is so weird!  But I loved it!  Ellis is an author to look out for.  She’s different.  And I love that.

Back when the book was released (March), I went to hear Ann Dee Ellis (another of our wonderful Utah authors) give a reading at The Kings English Bookshop.

I’m smiling funny but dang, she’s so cute! Can’t wait to see what she has coming up next.

Links of interest: Ann Dee Ellis website, more book blogger reviews, and Maw Books review of  This is What I Did by Ann Dee Ellis.
Genre: Young Adult
Published:  Little Brown Young Readers; March 1, 2009
Hardcover, 160 pages.  ISBN 978-0316013642
Everything is Fine is available from your independent bookstore, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

And to tell you the truth that’s all of the jacket copy I read.  Because I tend to only read the first sentence of jacket covers in fear of knowing too much about the book.  But that was just enough to make me anxious to dive into the book right away.  A book set during World War II.  Score!  A book set in India during World War II?  Double score! I’ve never read a book set in India during the war that I can recall.

Let me go ahead and share the rest of the summary from the dust jacket with you.  Simply because I’ve written three reviews in a row tonight and well, despite my own avoidance of them, this particular summary does a fine job.

When tragedy strikes, Vidya and her brother, Kitta, are forced to move into a traditional household with their grandfather and their extended family, where men live separately upstairs and the women who live below are meant to be married, not educated.

Breaking the rules, Vidya finds refuge in her grandfather’s second-floor library.  There she meets Raman, a young man also living in the house.  Surprisingly, he treats her like and equal and encourages her intellectual curiosity.  But soon it’s clear Raman wants more than just friendship, and when Kitta makes a shocking choice the family cannon condone, Vidya’s life becomes a whirlwind of personal and political complications.  Will she be strong enough to survive the storm?

What a wonderful book.   I loved Vidya sneaking upstairs and reading Oliver Twist, Hans Brinker, Ivanhoe, Pride and Prejudice, The Mayor of Castorbridge and more.  I loved how Vidya defied all conventions that was expected of her.  She desperately wanted to go to college, she did not want to get married young, and she wanted to be treated as an equal with her male counterparts.  I hated that women in her society were meant only to serve the men.  Vidya wanted so much and stood up for her rights.  I love a girl who can stand up for herself.   I desperately wanted to see her hopes and dreams come true.

A great historical fiction novel set in India.  It was wonderful.

Links of interest:  Padma Venkatraman website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile.  May 1, 2008.
Hardcover, 256 pages. ISBN 0399247467
Climbing the Stairs is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Girl in the Arena comes out today and I’d love to see people picking it up to read because I think it makes for some great discussion.  The more that I think about the book, the more I like it.  It has some fascinating insight into a culture that has gone mad for violence and touches on some deep issues.

Girl in the Arena is a dystopian novel but man, it felt like the culture was not such a far fetched idea.  There are a lot of references to current culture – Skyping, Wikipedia, watching Crouching Tiger and Stranger than Fiction but wrapped up in all of this is the Gladiator sport.  And it’s actually more than a sport, it’s an entire culture that began first underground at about the time of the Vietnam War.  Gladiators now fight in front of large crowds and a TV audience and can fight anything from animals to other Gladiators to the death.  It’s a blood sport more popular than football or soccer.

Lyn was born into the Gladiator lifestyle and living the rules and bylaws of the association is second nature to her family.  Her mother is a high profile Glad wife who has been married and widowed by seven Gladiators.  Lyn is known as the daughter who had seven fathers.  They are celebrities.  Tommy, her current father has been matched up with Uber, a new gifted young fighter and if there’s a bylaw that Lyn knows all to well it’s – Never leave the stadium when your father is dying. Uber wins Lyn’s dowry which means that she must marry him.  But after watching her mother lose seven husbands, the last thing that Lyn wants to do is become a Glad wife.  But the Association is intent on her celebrity wedding.  To win her freedom, she challenges Uber to a fight in the arena.  It’s a  first for the association and they’ll do anything for publicity.  The only problem is – she might actually like the guy.  And while she considers herself a fighter, she actually doesn’t like violence.

I loved Lyn’s little brother Thad.  Although, it’s not stated specifically, I imagine that he is Autistic.  Everything that Lyn does, she does for Thad.  I loved their relationship.  Lyn’s relationship with her mother was odd in the sense that she seemed to be taking care of her instead of the other way around.  Plus, I always find it odd when children call their parents by their first name.

Stylistically, I found that the choice to not include quotation marks in dialogue to be very interesting.  It took me more than half of the book to be able to see past it.  It was really hard to read this way at first and took me out of the story.  I honestly don’t know why the dialogue was this way.  I was okay with it the second half of the book after I got in the rhythm of the book.  You can get a slight idea of what I’m talking about in the following passage where Lyn recounts the first time she went to her first Glad fight at the age of five.

– Kitten, we’re going to see some funny things today.  Men being a . . . . little silly.

She rubbed my knuckles with her thumbs as she spoke.

– If we see anything that makes us a little sad or upset, we just have to make a game of it.

I said I wanted to play a game.  And she started over.

– The men are going to look like they’re having a big fight.  Your father is a famous fighter, so this is something to be proud of.

– He’s a gladiator, I said.

– Yes, exactly, and we know that gladiators hav weapons.  Like . . . axes and knives and . . .

– And clubs.

[. . . . ]

– Yes, clubs too.  Good girl.  So nothing to be concerned about.  And I brought your coloring book and crayons.  And look, she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out my favorite stuffed animal.  — I brought your dog and her pajamas if she gets tired.

This is also one of those covers that isn’t truly representative of the book’s character.  I personally like the cover but Lyn is actually bald for the entirety of the book.  She’s got a nice set of hair in that cover.

Girl in the Arena explores a world of violence and how the lines between reality and games are blurred.  It’s a story that I won’t forget simply because it is SO disturbing.  How does a culture move from being normal to one where killing each other for sport is celebrated?  I don’t think this book will be for everybody.  It is bloody.  So be warned.  But it’s worth picking up.  A fascinating premise and story line.

And although I think it stands completely on it’s own, yes, its true, for fans of The Hunger Games . . . .

Other bloggers on the Kidz Book Buzz tour:  Abby the Librarian, A Patchwork of Books, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Fireside Musings, Homeschool Book Buzz, KidzBookBuzz.com, Maw Books Blog, My Own Little Corner of the World, Reading is My Superpower, Through a Child’s Eyes.
Links of interest:  Lise Haines website and on twitter.
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Bloomsbury. October 13, 2009.
Hardcover, 336 pages. ISBN 1599903725
Girl in the Arena is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

15-year-old Sam has always been defined as the pastor’s daughter.  But not all is well behind closed doors.  Citing the pressures of being a pastor’s wife, Sam’s mother is an alcoholic who after one too many DUI’s is now in treatment.  But it’s not a fact that Sam wants her friends (who often don’t invite her along to less questionable activities – you know – the whole being the pasture’s daughter thing) to know about nor is it something that Sam and her father openly talk about with each other.

It is during this crisis in her family, that her community faces a crisis of its own.  A young girl in the church has mysteriously gone missing and no one is free from suspicion including her own father and the girl’s older brother, whom Sam has always crushed on.  This family and community crisis shakes Sam to her inner-core where she also experiences her own personal crisis – one that questions her faith, hope, and belief in something that is bigger than she is.

Although the events of this beautiful novel are huge – alcoholic parent, missing girl – it is also so quiet.  Sam is a character that feels so real.  Does she really live in those pages?  It can’t be possible.  She’s out there somewhere.  Living.  Breathing.  The questions that she asks herself are ones that any teen struggling to learn to identify who they are in the world will relate too.  Scratch that.  Not just teens.  Heck, even I found myself relating to Sam in my life right now and supposedly I’m supposed to have it all together right now.

Sam asks herself this question:

Do I believe?

I believe just enough that Jody is alive that I think we should keep looking.

I believe just enough in my mom to try to make a garden for her to work on when she gets home.

I believe just enough in my dad that he’ll have an explanation even if that explanation is that he’s only human.

I believe just enough in myself to know that even if I start in a new school I’ll be okay.

I believe just enough in forgiveness that eventually we’ll be a family again.

I believe just enough in God that I’m praying right now that Nick means what he says.

As a side note, I loved that Sam wanted to create the perfect garden for her mother to take care of.  As a gardener myself, I understand how gardening can heal.  How the creation of something can bring one hope.  When I garden, I’m basically telling myself that I’ll be around to reap the benefits of my work.  I have faith and hope in the plants and my ability to bring forth something that will bloom into something beautiful for me to enjoy later.  Gardening is an activity that while is enjoyable in the moment is one that is always looking to the future.  Sam wants to create a xeriscape garden:  a garden which can thrive on very little care.  Which I can’t help but think is how Sam thinks of herself, her mother, and her family.

Sara Zarr lives locally to me and it’s been my pleasure to be able to chat with her on numerous occasions.  I love that blogging has bridged that gap between author and reader for me.   The beautiful thing that I loved about Once Was Lost was that the author completely disappeared in the narration.  I did worry that knowing the author behind the book would taint my reading of it.  There’s nothing worse than hearing the author’s voice instead of  the characters.  But I completely forgot about Sara except that I had to keep reminding myself that  this amazing story came out her head.  How do people do that?  Honestly, I shouldn’t have been surprised because Story of a Girl and Sweethearts, are very popular books for teens, but I was in awe of the talent and the story that she’s able to tell.

Once Was Lost has a little bit of it all.  A mystery to pull you along, a family in crisis, a young teen discovering her identity and even a bit of romance.  But mostly it’s a novel about faith and how to hold on to that faith when the world we know comes crumbling down around us.

I was able to attend Sara Zarr’s launch party at The Kings English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on release day for Once Was Lost.  Tons of fun as always as so many other local authors came out to attend the big day.

I captured some video to share with you! In this video Sara talks about how the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart (which happened in our SLC community) inspired the writing of Once Was Lost:

Sara talks more about the writing process for Once Was Lost including how the safe return of Elizabeth Smart and Sara’s own therapy changed the outlook of the book:

And last, Sara reads from Once Was Lost (no spoilers – she reads from beginning of book):

Sara is doing a fun video tour of current book tour, I was thrilled to catch a one second image of myself in her last video!

Links of interest:  Sara Zarr website, more book blogger reviews, Maw Books reviews of Story of a Girl, Sweethearts, interview with Sara and  breakfast smoothie recipe.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher:  Little, Brown Young Readers.  October 1, 2009
Hardcover, 224 pages.  ISBN 0316036048
Once Was Lost is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Hush is the story of Toswiah.  Toswiah has a nice life.  In fact, a great life.  Her family is great,  her best friend is great, school is great, she loves the mountains of Denver and her father loves his job as a cop.   But everything changes when her father witnesses the murder of a black boy from two white police officers.  Loyalty is the most important thing in the agency but when he considers testifying against the men, his family is put at risk.  So much so, that they have to leave in the  middle of the night and join the Witness Protection Program.

No longer twelve-year-old Toswiah from Colorado, she is Evie from San Francisco.  Her father spirals into a deep depression, her mother is overcome with religion, and her sister is making plans to leave for school the first moment she can.  Hush is a coming of age story but how does one come of age when you are suddenly forced to reinvent yourself?  To leave everything behind – your entire identity and look to the future when you can no longer speak of the past?

I appreciated this quote from Woodson from a Reading Rants interview:

A lot of what Hush, the book about the witness protection program, the big question is, when someone takes your name away, who do you become? If I woke up tomorrow and I couldn’t be Jacqueline Woodson, what would that mean? How would I begin to re-identify myself?

I ask the same question about myself.  What if I was no longer Natasha Maw?  How would I reinvent myself?  And if this had happened to me when I was twelve, instead of thirty, how would that have changed me?  Would I have splintered off into somebody completely different?  And what happens when permanence is taken away?  When you are no longer defined by even the possessions, momentos, and even family photos that you had in the past?

In Evie’s/Toswiah’s own words: “Does it matter what I am, if I’m not anyone?!”

Beautiful book.  Highly recommended.

I read Hush as part of Banned Books Week in which I’m reading and reviewing a challenged or banned book a day. Hush was on the Challenged Children’s Books compiled by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  However, my internet searches of why it’s been challenged have turned up empty.  There was one instance of a friend calling her sister retarded and then went on to explain mentally challenged.  It might be a stretch but this is the only thing that I can even think of of why it could have been challenged.  Nothing else sticks out to me at all.

Links of interest:  Jacqueline Woodson website,   More book blogger reviews of Hush.  Other Woodson books reviewed by Maw Books:  I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This, Show Way, Feathers, If You Come Softly, Behind You, Peace Locomotion, Locomotion, and Miracle’s Boys.  My experience meeting Woodson at LA Times Festival of Books.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile.  January 7, 2002.
Hardcover, 192  pages.  ISBN:  0399231145
Hush is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

When Matt returns to his unit, he’s still not sure what happened and despite his misgivings, his superiors are willing to just sweep the incident under the carpet.  It’s better to not say anything at all then incriminate ones self.  But can he live with himself, if indeed, he did shoot the little boy?  And will his friends who know what really happened speak up about it?  And worse, will he be able to pull the trigger next time he’s commanded to shoot?

Purple Heart is an excellent book that explores the idea that war is not black and white.  Instead it’s made up of boys and girls who have friends and family back home who will never understand what they experience every day.  McCormick doesn’t take sides or morally addresses the rightness or the wrongness of the war but rather focuses on the men – rather the boys who are on the verge on manhood – who are fighting it.  Matt Duffy is a character that many will relate to and his struggle with his conscience is also one that readers will sympathize with regardless of their own situations, war or not.

I highly recommend Purple Heart to teen boy readers, especially those with an interest in the military.  It’s not often that a book like this will come along and catch their attention.  And yet, Purple Heart isn’t just for boys.  It’s for any reader who wants to experience the war through the eyes of a young soldier who is just trying do what is right and make sense of his newfound surroundings and friends.

As always, Patricia McCormick continues her streak of excellent books on thought provoking subjects.

Links of interest:  Patricia McCormick website, more book blogger reviews.  Maw Books reviews of Sold, Cut and My Brother’s Keeper also by McCormick.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher:  Balzer and Bray.  September 1, 2009  – Released just this week!
Hardcover, 208 pages.  ISBN 0061730904
Purple Heart is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Observing my continual gushing and geeking out when I met Woodson at the LA Times Festival of Books, Amy at My Friend Amy decided to try her out and fell in love with Woodson’s writing and story (how could anybody not?).  When Amy reviewed I Hadn’t Mean to Tell You This by Jacqueline Woodson, a title that I hadn’t read yet, and sobbed her way through it, I put a hold on it at the library immediately.  Yes, something about people sobbing through books attracts me a great deal.

And thus we come circle.  I love turning readers onto new authors who then turn me onto titles from said author that I haven’t read yet.  I love that blogging about books makes reading books a social activity.   So it’s my hope that for all those who have yet to pick up a Woodson title (despite the fact that I keep reviewing them here!) will do so.

Jacqueline Woodson’s writing is incredibly beautiful and I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This is no exception.  But while the writing is beautiful, the subject matter certainly is not.   It is unbelievably sad and gut-wrenching.  Marie is twelve-years-old and lives well off in a black suburb.  She never wants for money, nice clothes, or friends.  Her father is a college professor and she’s got a full ride scholarship in her future.  But what is missing in her life is her mother.  A mother who was so depressed with her life that she leaves both Marie and her father behind in favor of living her life by seeing the world.

Lena, a new white girl moves to Marie’s school and it’s fairly clear that she’s what everybody, including her father, calls white trash.  She doesn’t take care of herself, she’s dirty, and her clothes are old, baggy and clearly hand-outs.  Despite their differences the two girls are drawn to each other and Lena desperately wants to be her friend.

Marie soon comes to know that Lena has also lost a mother.  Through this common bond, Lena shares a secret so deep that Marie doesn’t know what to do.  Does  her silence help Lena or will reaching out be able to save her from a nightmarish home?

I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This is a short 114 pages.  It can easily be read in under an hour and a half.  But it’s that short hour and a half that will stay with you forever.  As a fair warning to both teens and their parents, the subject matter of this book is about sexual abuse of a child.  It’s a subject that’s never easy to read but it’s books like this that bring it out into the open to be discussed.  And on top of that, Woodson effectivally explores the themes of child abandonment from a parent and also the death of a parent.

It’s a heavy handed book for sure but yet Woodson leaves you with a glimmer of hope and the knowledge that you have just experienced a beautiful book that seems almost effortless to achieve.  I’ll leave you with the same quote that Amy chose in her recent review:

Yes, of course I wanted to fly. I wanted to cast off, feel the ground droop slowly out from beneath me. “What is air, Mama?” I asked when I was five. Caressing the back of my neck with her hand, my mother waited a moment before she answered. “Air,” she said, “is something there isn’t enough of here.”

Links of interest:  Jacqueline Woodson website, more book blogger reviews, Maw Book reviews of other Woodson title’s including  Show Way, Feathers, If You Come Softly, Behind You, Peace Locomotion, Locomotion, and Miracle’s Boys.  My experience meeting Woodson at LA Times Festival of Books.
Genre:  Young Adult fiction.
Publisher:  Speak.  June 8, 2006.  First edition 1994.
Paperback 128 pages.  ISBN 0142405558
I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

But seriously, do I even want to review this one?  Do you even want to know what happens?  No, admit it.  You don’t.  If you’ve read The Hunger Games, you just want to know if it’s not disappointing.  No.  It’s not.

My book club read The Hunger Games earlier this year and so they all read my copy of Catching Fire as well as a few others including my mother-in-law and husband.  Every single one of them LOVED it and NEED the third book NOW.  If I had been thinking properly I should have had them all jot down mini-reviews as it was passed on.

Catching Fire comes out today (in case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t had it penciled on your calender for months)!  You’ll want to run out right NOW and pick it up.  I can guarantee that you’ll likely read it in one sitting.

Because I’m a dork and don’t have any cool Catching Fire giveaways to offer, here are some bloggers who are:  The Scholastic blog (signed copy!), Reading Adventures, Booking Mama, Pop Culture Junkie, The Book Smugglers, Frenetic Reader,  Greenbeanteenqueen, The Story Siren, and Presenting Lenore.

So have you read The Hunger Games *gasp* and are you running out today for Catching Fire?

Links of interest: Maw Books review of The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins website.
Genre:  Young Adult/Dystopian
Published by Scholastic Press.  September 1, 2009
Hardcover, 400 pages.  ISBN: 0439023491.
Catching Fire is available from local independent bookstores, Powell’s and Amazon.

Anke’s home is not one of love.  It’s one of abuse.  Anke, her brother, her sister and mother all live with a dark secret.  Anke’s father abuses them all.  Her mother, brother and sister through emotional, physical and sexual abuse.  But for Anke, it’s neglect.  It’s a complete lack of attention from her father.  She might as well be invisible.  In fact, she might as well just be a piece of furniture in the home.

I am always there.
But they don’t care if I am
because I am furniture.

I don’t get hit
I don’t get fondled
I don’t get love
because I am furniture.

Suits me fine.

Anke despises the abuse.  Wishes she could speak up about it.  Wishes she had the power to stop it.  But she fears that her father would kill them all if she stepped up to him.  So the abuse continues.  Her father comes home at night and goes into her sisters room.  She knows the hell that her sister is going through but does nothing but listen.

I appreciated where the author then took the story of Because I Am Furniture and the thought process of Anke.  Anke was jealous.  Why did her sister receive her father’s attention?  Was she herself not pretty enough?  Not worthy enough?  In some sickeningly, round-a-bout way she equated love with the abuse.  They were worthy enough to gain the attention of their father.  She was not.  I found this thought process fascinating.

Anke makes up for her feelings of insignificance by trying out for the volleyball team at school.  Volleyball opens up a whole new world to Anke.  One where she is forced to be powerful on the court, one where she must yell to be heard.  She finally learns how to have a voice and to truly be in a comfortable environment.  She also makes a friend, somebody else with an abusive background.  Despite never sharing the nightmare of a home she lives in, she’s happy to have somebody who  understands her and doesn’t ask to many questions.

As Anke’s voice grows, her father’s abuse also increases.  But this time, he’s beginning to notice Anke’s classmate, a girl who thinks that he’s the best dad ever and doesn’t understand why Anke doesn’t think her dad is even cute?  The story accelerates to a devastating climax where Anke finally uses her newly found confidence to step up and do something.

Because I Am Furniture is heartbreaking.  I truly felt pity for each of the characters and fury at the father.   I was invested in these characters.  They were alive to me on the pages and I wanted to yell at them to get help.  Get out of there.  Leave.  Do something!  It’s so frustrating to see characters don’t do something that when you are on the outside looking in, seems so apparent and easy.   You never know what is going on in the house next door.

If abuse, especially abuse of children, is a subject matter that you can handle, I’d recommend this one.  It was powerful.  Obviously, if it’s a topic that you wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole , I’d stay far far away.

How do you feel about reading books about abuse?  I know many refuse to read them.  Many want happy books.  Or find that they emotionally can’t handle it.   Which side of the fence are  you on?

Links of interest:  Thalia Chaltas website.
Genre:  YA Novel-in-Verse
Publisher:  Viking Juvenile.  April 16, 2009
Hardcover, 368 pages.  ISBN: 0670062987
Because I am Furniture is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Clay comes home from school one day to find a package on his porch.  Yay for packages!  How exciting.  It doesn’t say who it’s from, so he excitedly rips into it.  Inside are thirteen cassette tapes.  Weird.  Who even uses cassette tapes anymore?  After hunting a player down (harder than it would seem), he puts the first tape in.  He’s shocked to hear the voice of Hannah Baker, a girl at school who had just committed suicide.

At the beginning of the tapes, Hannah explains that each tape represents a person.  On each tape she will explain what that particular person did to help contribute to her suicide.  Having received the tapes in the first place, Clay is obviously distraught, but to consider that his actions, unknowingly to him, played a role in her suicide is simply too much.  As he listens to each tape, he learns more than he wants to know about his fellow classmates, but it’s with fear and trepidation that he knows the next tape could very well be him.

Thirteen Reasons Why is thought provoking and is the type of book that brings up a lot of discussion points.  It’s the little things that we  do that may seem like a huge deal to somebody else.  Harmless gossip is not really harmless at all.  But in the end, are we really responsible for somebody else’s actions?

Why did Hannah place the blame on others, especially when she had so many opportunities to reach out and get help?  Who’s really responsible for the suicide?  Hannah?  Or the people listed on the tapes?  I’m one to say that the suicide was ultimately Hannah’s decision.  She obviously carried it out and I don’t think that it’s fair for the others to be held responsible for an action that wasn’t theirs.  But what of the ripple effects?  The little things that one does to wound the character of another.  To so deeply affect them that they aren’t able to shake it.  And what’s worse, to  not even realize it.  Thirteen Reasons Why makes us sit back and think before we talk or act.

Thirteen Reasons Why is told from the viewpoint of Clay as he listens to the tapes and alternates with Hannah’s side of the story on the tapes.  I couldn’t help but think about the book Skeleton Creek which alternates between written text and videos that the reader watches online to get the whole story.  I wonder how Thirteen Reasons Why would be in a similar format.  The written text as Clay’s point of view and Hannah’s told not in written word, as it is now, but rather in audio.  Wouldn’t that be cool?  A book told in audio and text?  This is the type of book that I think would be perfect for such a technique and would immerse the reader further into the story.

There was one small thing that bothered me throughout the book and I don’t know why I narrow in on it so specifically.  When Clay received the tapes and realizes they are from Hannah, he wonders why she would send them to him.  He thinks something along the lines of “Oh, the girl at school who committed suicide.  Hannah and I hardly know each other.  We are just acquaintances.”  I would quote the line but I don’t have the book in my possession but this was the feeling that I got when reading it.  Later in the book, we learn that Hannah and Clay had not only made out together at a party, but had had a heart-to-heart in depth conversation, which makes it more than just a “that girl” and “we hardly know each other.”  I suppose that thinking that they didn’t know each other, I was surprised by the unfolding story where they did know each other.  Although I’m sure I’m the only reader who feels this way, I don’t think the story was set up quite right because their relationship was not as explained.

I never felt sorry for Hannah, which as the character who killed herself because she felt bullied at school, I suppose I should have.  She was not likable to me.  There were so many times that she thought, “well, if this is what people think I’m already like, there is nothing I can do about it and I might as well act the part,” which is an attitude that made me want to throw the book across the room.  But I think that’s probably the point.  As a reader, I was so frustrated with her thought process that I’m sure that the people who found themselves the topic of each tape probably felt the same way.  In  retrospect, they wish that she had acted differently, thought differently, but there was nothing that they could do about it.

Thirteen Reasons Why is a great book for teens and adults that takes a good hard look at teens bullying teens, the warning signs of suicide, and suicide itself.  As I read this book for book club it also makes for a great discussion.  While it frustrated me to no end, I do think it’s worth the read and recommend it.

Links of interest:  Jay Asher website and blog.  More blogger reviews of Thirteen Reasons Why.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher:  Razorbill.  October 18, 2007
Hardcover, 320 pages.  320 pages.
Thirteen Reasons Why is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powells, and Amazon.