Clay comes home one afternoon to find an unassuming shoe-box sized package addressed to him sitting on his doorstep. There's no return address. Curious, he opens the box and discovers it to be empty aside from seven loose cassette tapes, their sides numbered 1-13. Still curious, he plops the 1st tape into his dad's stereo and presses play...only to hear a voice from beyond the grave: "Hello, boys and girls. Hannah Baker here...I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended. And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why."
Hannah, you see, committed suicide two weeks previously. And apparently she still has a score, make that 13 scores, to settle. But Clay, well, Clay doesn't know WHY he's been included in Hannah's head games. Clay has secretly liked Hannah for years and was hurt by her death. But not as hurt as he's about to be as he forces himself to listen to the tapes and learns things about his classmates and supposed friends he never suspected and never wanted to know.
This is an amazingly painful and powerful story. It's not comfortable to read. Or listen to--the audio is amazing and the Hannah segments give me chills. There's a lot of heavy stuff being discussed here--suicide, date rape, teen drinking, bullying, harassment, the list goes on. But ultimately, this story illustrates how our actions or lack thereof profoundly impact the people around us. How we're all connected, whether we want to be or no. As such, I think it's a MUST read for teens (let's say grade 9 and above) and people working with teens. Go check it out now.
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