This is a sad one...

I don't really know how to start this entry, but I guess to start it off I am just going to say that Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher is a story that will probably stick with me for a long time.  I know I've said that before, but if you've ever read this book, you will understand why I said that.

Like a lot of others in the world, who have lost a loved one to suicide, I could relate to this story.  This year has been extremely tough for my family and I, we lost three dogs (our oldest who we'd had since 1998, our one girl in the mix who was 6, and a puppy that we'd only had for a couple of weeks and who'd died of intestinal complications)  (Let me just explain, that our dogs means the world to us, they are our babies, we love them all equally, and consider them to be family; so you can just imagine how tough it was when we went from having a little pack of 5 to only 2) and we lost my grandmother this year.

No matter what age a loved one dies at, I don't think it becomes any easier letting go, that's how it was with my grandmother anyway.  I was extremely close with her, and called her every Sunday to catch up, and she came to visit us every 9 months.  Of course, I was absolutely devastated when we found got the call that my grandmother had died.  Like losing someone, I also believe suicide doesn't have an age limit either, where it gets easier to deal with.

It's so unexpected, at least in my families case, because all you want to do is ask them a ton questions, like "Why?", "What happened?" and "How could you do this to us?"  For me it was extremely difficult, because that moment when I found out, it just kept going through my head that all I wanted to do was talk to her just one more time.  I wanted to be able to give her a hug, and tell her, "I love you always, Omi."

Some of you may be wondering, why are you sharing this? Why do we care? Well here's my answer: Sometimes it just good to get out how you feel.  That's something that Hannah and I have in common actually.  Except Hannah never felt like she had the right place where she was able to let it out how she felt.

As I'm sitting here at my desk, listening to Hannah's tapes on Youtube, because yes, Jay Asher actually had someone record the 13 tapes that Clay listens to in 13 Reasons Why; I can't help feeling the pain that came as I read this book.  I don't think it's a bad pain or even a good pain, it's just sort of this aching in my chest; that feeling of sadness as I remember everything that has happened in the last few months in my life.

This book has helped so many people, either by helping them overcome that feeling of someone thinking about taking their life, helping someone else stop that kind of thinking, someone dealing with the death of a loved one who committed suicide, or even realizing that there could be so many different reasons of why your loved one took his/her own life.  This book is absolutely devastating, but not in a bad way.  I thought this story was so beautiful, so heartfelt!

I loved Clay's different reactions as he listened to Hannah's tapes, listening to her talk about the people that ended up causing her to take her own life.  Of course, as I read this story, I had some of the same thoughts as Clay, such as, "Why is she blaming these people, why is she making them feel terrible, just like she felt about herself?", but as I kept reading I started seeing a lot of things more clearly through the point of view of Hannah.

My rating:

Before I end this extremely long entry (sorry, by the way for that!!) I do want to add a couple of websites for information that are related to this story:

http://suicidehotlines.com/national.html (this is the National Suicide hotline for the US, for if anyone ever feels like they need information on this topic)

And http://www.youtube.com/hannahsfriend13 (this is the youtube channel where you can listen to Hannah's tapes, I recommend you either do this after you read the book or listen as you go along.  Oh and it isn't everything from the book, mainly just the names of the people that affected her.)


I hope I didn't give too much away, and I really hope that if any of you get a chance to pick this book up, then do it!! It's probably one of the best stories I've ever read.  Sorry this entry is so extremely long!

The Romance Bookie