Clay Jensen comes home one day to find a package waiting for him. Inside are seven cassette tapes. On the cassette tapes are the thirteen reasons why Hannah Baker has killed herself. As Clay listens to the tapes, he learns a lot more than he bargained for about the people around him, and comes to understand just how important it can be to reach out a hand to someone in need.

It’s kind of hard to read a book like this. We’re so predisposed to expecting happy endings from the stories that we consume. Knowing from the beginning that there is no good ending makes it seem kind of futile. But this is one of those books you just can’t put down. You can’t help feeling that it must be relevant. (more…)