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Thirteen Reasons Why (Asher)
Mar. 13th, 2012 07:42 amThirteen Reasons Why (Asher)
3-/5. Hannah, who committed suicide, leaves cassette tapes behind for the thirteen people who affected her decision.
Look. I generally think books on suicide are useful. And I generally find books about how, especially as a teen, one's actions have an impact on other people not just useful but also really interesting and valuable. I love Chris Crutcher and Sarah Dessen and Melina Marchetta and Cynthia Voigt and all those authors who are tackling these kinds of questions.
So I thought I would like this book, but I bounced hard off of it instead.
I think it might have been the near-complete lack of characterization. The only thing I learned about the narrator (Clay, the kid listening to the tapes) during the entire book is that he thinks he is very shy. Oh, also, he has a mom. Hannah herself comes across as whiny and entitled, and although we're clearly supposed to feel sorry for her that all these horrible things happened to her, it was kind of hard for me to care. I kept wanting to be all "Just stop complaining and get a grip, Hannah, geez!" which is exactly the sort of attitude the author was trying to lambast. It obviously just didn't work for me.
I actually think this is a natural problem of the way the story is told (the narrator listening to the tapes interspersed with the contents of the tapes themselves) -- I see how it's a narrative hook (and an effective one; after reading the description I did want to read the book) -- but it's very hard for a character to consciously tell her story (that is, not just first-person narration, but actually being conscious of writing it down (or speaking it) for an audience) without coming across as a little solipsistic (heh, see also In Spite of Everything, this might also have been my problem with that book) and very hard to complain in a conscious narration without coming across as whiny. I think this is because in such a conscious story, it's really hard to show rather than tell. You can't show by showing other people's reactions, because the story is being told by you, and you can't show by showing your own reactions without coming across as seriously over-self-analytical. So you just have to describe what you felt. "I felt like everyone was ignoring my pain." And that is not writing that's going to resonate.
Oh, and also, everyone gets to be very two-dimensional. There's Nice!Guy and NiceVeneerButActuallyCatty!Girl and Doesn'tRespectWomen!Guy and so on. Again, problem with the narrative structure. Of course from Hannah's perspective they're only going to be 2D, and she, of course, dies, so she never figures out if there's anything more to them. (Contrast, say, To Kill a Mockingird, which is consciously told as an older woman looking back on her childhood, and so she can see things that she wasn't able to see as a child.) Indeed, there is no character development in this book by anybody. Everyone's pretty much the same throughout the entire book.
(Hm, on second thought, I can see how this could have been helped. Since there are effectively two narrators, Clay could have been used to give another dimension to all the characters. But he wasn't used that way.)
And I think this is a problem. The whole point of a book dealing with suicide is to humanize both those who have committed (or are thinking about committing) suicide and those who may unknowing have contributed to that person's problems. It is to elicit compassion in the reader as well as thoughtfulness about our own actions, a sense of empathy that hopefully we will take out into the world. (In addition to the authors I mentioned above, Before I Fall, though I do not particularly recommend it, did a far better job in these respects.) If what you're instead eliciting is a sense of "Stop whining," you have failed.
Also, my pedagogical rant-o-meter going off: the English classes at this school seriously read a (bad) anonymous poem by one of their own high schoolers in class? And it was seriously compared to reading a poem by a famous dead person? I... don't even know where to start. The utter wrongness of this is never addressed, perhaps because Hannah had so many other things to complain about.
No idea why this book has been so recced around. I suppose they haven't read Chris Crutcher.
3-/5. Hannah, who committed suicide, leaves cassette tapes behind for the thirteen people who affected her decision.
Look. I generally think books on suicide are useful. And I generally find books about how, especially as a teen, one's actions have an impact on other people not just useful but also really interesting and valuable. I love Chris Crutcher and Sarah Dessen and Melina Marchetta and Cynthia Voigt and all those authors who are tackling these kinds of questions.
So I thought I would like this book, but I bounced hard off of it instead.
I think it might have been the near-complete lack of characterization. The only thing I learned about the narrator (Clay, the kid listening to the tapes) during the entire book is that he thinks he is very shy. Oh, also, he has a mom. Hannah herself comes across as whiny and entitled, and although we're clearly supposed to feel sorry for her that all these horrible things happened to her, it was kind of hard for me to care. I kept wanting to be all "Just stop complaining and get a grip, Hannah, geez!" which is exactly the sort of attitude the author was trying to lambast. It obviously just didn't work for me.
I actually think this is a natural problem of the way the story is told (the narrator listening to the tapes interspersed with the contents of the tapes themselves) -- I see how it's a narrative hook (and an effective one; after reading the description I did want to read the book) -- but it's very hard for a character to consciously tell her story (that is, not just first-person narration, but actually being conscious of writing it down (or speaking it) for an audience) without coming across as a little solipsistic (heh, see also In Spite of Everything, this might also have been my problem with that book) and very hard to complain in a conscious narration without coming across as whiny. I think this is because in such a conscious story, it's really hard to show rather than tell. You can't show by showing other people's reactions, because the story is being told by you, and you can't show by showing your own reactions without coming across as seriously over-self-analytical. So you just have to describe what you felt. "I felt like everyone was ignoring my pain." And that is not writing that's going to resonate.
Oh, and also, everyone gets to be very two-dimensional. There's Nice!Guy and NiceVeneerButActuallyCatty!Girl and Doesn'tRespectWomen!Guy and so on. Again, problem with the narrative structure. Of course from Hannah's perspective they're only going to be 2D, and she, of course, dies, so she never figures out if there's anything more to them. (Contrast, say, To Kill a Mockingird, which is consciously told as an older woman looking back on her childhood, and so she can see things that she wasn't able to see as a child.) Indeed, there is no character development in this book by anybody. Everyone's pretty much the same throughout the entire book.
(Hm, on second thought, I can see how this could have been helped. Since there are effectively two narrators, Clay could have been used to give another dimension to all the characters. But he wasn't used that way.)
And I think this is a problem. The whole point of a book dealing with suicide is to humanize both those who have committed (or are thinking about committing) suicide and those who may unknowing have contributed to that person's problems. It is to elicit compassion in the reader as well as thoughtfulness about our own actions, a sense of empathy that hopefully we will take out into the world. (In addition to the authors I mentioned above, Before I Fall, though I do not particularly recommend it, did a far better job in these respects.) If what you're instead eliciting is a sense of "Stop whining," you have failed.
Also, my pedagogical rant-o-meter going off: the English classes at this school seriously read a (bad) anonymous poem by one of their own high schoolers in class? And it was seriously compared to reading a poem by a famous dead person? I... don't even know where to start. The utter wrongness of this is never addressed, perhaps because Hannah had so many other things to complain about.
No idea why this book has been so recced around. I suppose they haven't read Chris Crutcher.
