Book Review: Thirteen Reason Why by Jay Asher

Book: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Genre: YA
Rating:★★★★☆
For: Banned Books Week
From: Amazon (I think) years ago

It's been a long time that I've wanted to read this book. And now, finally, for Banned Books Week (which actually starts next week, but is being celebrated this week by Sheila from Book Journey) I had that chance!

Yes, next week is Banned Books Week, and you know what that means. It means we all jump on the BANNED Wagon and sing the praises of books that for some reason or another have been challenged or banned from schools or libraries or other such places. But mostly we shout for joy for the very freedom we have to read, and to read whatever we want. It's an awesome freedom and one we should never take for granted.

This book, Thirteen Reason Why, has been challenged (not sure if anybody actually banned it) because it deals with many many tough subjects. The biggest one, suicide. I guess some people believe that we shouldn't read about tough subjects. And because of our freedoms, they don't have to, but some of us figure we can learn by reading about such things. And therefore learn how to better our lives in some way.

The thing I learned from this book, and the thing I think all teenagers should learn if they do read this book, is please please please talk to other kids. Be their friend. Don't judge. Don't believe rumors. Be nice to each other. Respect each other. If you have a feeling that you are needed by someone, act on it. Don't ignore the gut or the heart telling you what you should do.

Yeah, good things to learn from a book about a hard thing.

Most of you have probably already read this one, but just in case, it's about a girl who commits suicide. Before she goes, she leaves a set of tapes telling her reasons why... detailing the line up of events that caused her to feel hopeless. Each of these tapes are addressed to different people she had contact with who influenced this decision in some way. When the main boy in the book gets them, he is devastated. So we follow him through the listening of all the tapes, going back and forth from the girl telling her story, to him dealing with it. It was a very interesting writing device to use, and one that took me awhile to get used to. It was two first person points of view and I had to really concentrate to remember who was doing the talking at the time. (Italics were used to help us, but it still gave me a bit of reader whiplash!)

Anyway, the story is a sad one. I felt mostly for the boy who wished so bad he could go back in time and help this girl. The girl, I think she gave up way way too quickly and she made me mad because of that. There were people in her life she could turn to and she just didn't. This boy being one of them. So yeah, it was kind of weird being mad at her, but that's just how I felt!

Bottom line: I'm finally glad to have read this powerful book that makes an important statement... look out for each other and be friends!

Other Reviews:

I do not agree with the hype. The book is stupidly written, and will bore adults (unless they think like fifteen year olds). From Rivers I Have Known

Read this book, it just might change your life, too. It might make you think about your daily actions in a new way. From Dear Author

Asher does an amazing job of grabbing the reader from the opening line and not letting go ~ ever. I highly recommend this novel to every teenager, parent, teacher, or anyone else who works with teens. From The Novel Life

We need to teach kids that they can overcome anything. We need to empower them to face and solve their problems, not give up and run away. From The Literate Mother

Banned Books Week Book Review and Giveaway: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Book: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Genre: classic SF/Historical Fiction mix, sort of
Rating: ★★★☆ ☆
For: Banned Books Week
From: a gift last Christmas from Ibeeeg at Polishing Mud Balls

As part of celebrating the freedom to read this week, I agreed to participate in the party hosted by Sheila of Book Journey by reviewing a book from the banned/challenged book list. I've picked this book in particular because it's been sitting in on my shelf for quite sometime waiting for an opportunity just such as this!

I had no idea what to expect. I've never read anything by this author, though I've wanted to see what the fuss is all about surrounding him. But what this book was about (other than what I read months ago on Ibeeeg's blog, which of course I'd forgotten already) I knew nothing.

What I got was a weird, very strange, bizarre book! I don't even know where to begin!

So there's this guy who wants to write a book about his war experiences, so he goes to talk to his war buddy,  and they reminisce sort of. But then, the book shifts to another guy, Billy, who we follow for pretty much the rest of the book (the narrator pokes his head in now and then) throughout his sad and crazy life.

For you see, he time travels in and out of all his life's experiences, including the time he was kidnapped by aliens and put on display in their zoo. Yes.

But it's my opinion that Billy wasn't really time travelling at all, and that he didn't really get abducted by aliens, but in fact, his brain was doing strange and fantastical things in order to survive the horrors of war. Because it was the horrors of war that this book dealt with for the most part. Billy goes off to fight, gets caught behind enemy lines, is sent by train (cattle-like) to a POW camp that in fact didn't sound so bad at first, and then is sent to Dresden where the city was bombed and destroyed. But the American POWs survive.

Then he comes back home to live his life, all the while dealing with these memories. We jump back and forth, back and forth, from the war, to his post-war life, to his childhood, to his alien abduction. This method, I must say, wasn't as jarring as it sounds and actually gives the reader a fabulous feel of what it might be like to be in this guy's head.

And it wasn't a fun place to be at all.

In the end, I found the book a very quick and easy read despite the difficult subject matter. I did find several parts a bit offensive and the language sometimes harsh, thus the reason, I'm sure, for it's being on the banned list. The alien bits were at once funny and awful. I think alien stories creep me out as much as anything else, and this one was no exception. Though strangely (or maybe not when you think about it) enough, I think Billy was happiest during this "experience."

Bottom line: While I can't truly say "enjoyable" I can say that it was an interesting experience and one I'm glad to have finally accomplished!

And so it goes.

Other Reviews:

Bizarre, and incredibly engrossing. This is not a book to be missed. From Polishing Mud Balls

If people are shocked by this book, than they’ve been living under a rock. From Fizzy Thoughts

Vonnegut’s deceptively simple masterpiece is about life itself; it is about the futility and utter waste of warfare; it is about time, and the way that we perceive it; it is about fate and whether any of us really has any control over what happens to us next. From Book Chase

It was clever, but there wasn’t anything underneath the cleverness. From Jenny's Books


Now, as part of the celebration, I will giveaway a copy of this book to a lucky reader! Just fill out the form below (I plan to send it to you from Amazon, so anyone that Amazon ships to can enter) with your information.

I'd also love to have you comment on 1) have you read this book and how did you interpret it? and 2) what book from the banned list to you find most shocking to be there.

 I just have to end with this song, which was pretty much in my head the whole time while reading this book. You'll understand if you've read it. Besides, I LOVE this song, so I must share:


 

Banned Books: Extreme Mini Reviews

In celebration of Banned Books Week, I thought it would be fun to simply tell you, and give an extreme mini review for, some of my favorite banned and/or challenged books. I don't pretend to know why these books give some people issues. Mostly, I think they deal with hard, real, emotional subjects which can make some people nervous. Perhaps they don't like how certain groups are portrayed. Maybe that portrayal is right, and maybe it is wrong, but still it seems like it might be a good starting point for some nice healthy discussion, not the catalyst for censorship.

So here are some of my most favorite books that show up on the list here and here:

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: A heart breaking portrayal of the hardships and frustration one family goes through during the drought of the 1930's. I don't think I've ever read a book that left me feeling more frustrated and helpless for the characters. It was intensely emotional.

The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank: Here's a book that I would love to find time to routinely re-read. (I should have put it on yesterday's list!) A perfectly normal girl gets a diary for her birthday and starts writing (granted her writing is amazing) in it about her perfectly normal life. Then the Nazi's come to town and suddenly she is documenting one of the world's most darkest moments. It never fails to amaze me that this young teenager has become so well known just for preserving her spunk and spirit by simply writing in her diary.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: Because this was a book I (re)read since blogging, I do have a full review here, but let me just say quickly that yet again, here's a book that packs a powerful punch to the feelings and emotions taking place during the civil rights era, through (yet again) the eyes of a young girl. Not an easily forgotten one, this book.

The Giver by Lois Lowy: This is probably the first dystopian book I read, way before dystopian was cool and trendy. And I was blown away by the idea of a world where memories are taken away, where people lose their choices, where kids can't be kids and old people can't grow old. It's a haunting powerful book.

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George: Here's a book that brings back memories of childhood when I was discovering the joy of reading. It was on the list that I got from a relative which listed a bunch of good books to read (aka Newbery Award winners.) I remember it basically being about the coming of age story of an Eskimo girl and the stuff she had to go through... wow. I should read it again so I can remember better.

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: I read this one the summer after ninth grade, and was sucked in! Then we (my friends and I) went and saw the movie which suddenly was playing for fun at the dollar theater. Ah, the memories! One of the best novels ever to give you a feeling of the craziness that was the Civil War.

I could go on and on! What a bunch of awesome books are on those lists! Now, granted, there's also some on there I'll probably avoid, but that's okay. I don't have to read them. But the key part is, I don't get to tell YOU not to read them! :)

The Sunday Salon: Bits of Bookish Business

I thought of tons of things I wanted to mention in a Sunday Salon blog post today, all while was unsuccessfully trying to sleep last night. Do you find yourself doing that? Thinking of blogging in the middle of the night? Drives me crazy!

And of course now I can't remember what any of those things were, but we'll give it a try.

--First off, I did want to mention Banned Books Week that's going on this week. I love banned books. They're always the best ones, you know. Some may have something a little squirmy in them, but it's those kinds of things that give you something to think about usually. Anyway, so I looked one of the lists, for banned and challenged classics, and some personal favorites on that list are: The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Charlotte's Web, Brave New World, Gone With The Wind, My Antonia, Howard's End, Rebecca, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... just to name a few. And on it goes with current books also. So.Go read yourself a wonderful banned book this week!

--I've counted all the votes for my book club's upcoming reads. We'll be adding The Help, Bel Canto, Rebecca, North and South, The Guernsey Society, and a fairy tale book month to our schedule! I'm so excited! Almost all of these are book club sets from the library too. What a cool idea someone came up with!

--What I'm reading today: Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Finally! And you were all right, what an intense amazing crazy story. I've been waiting for this one to become available at the library forever it seems, and when it finally did this weekend, I dropped everything else, and read all yesterday, and just finished it a moment ago. Whew! What a ride.

--Hey, don't forget, the Bookword Game is back! Head on over to An Adventure in Reading to suggest the new word, then come and vote at a poll I'll have here this coming Wednesday. You remember the routine, right?

--Oh, and if you're reading this on a feed at the moment, click on over and let me know what you think of my new look. I'm trying to change things up a little anyway. Still not sure I've got what I set out to get, but getting closer anyway. If you're new to the blog, click on my new About link where I've listed some random info.... yeah... about me! :)

--I pondered present tense in a fun post this week. Guess what? Almost everyone says it bugs them, and that it throws off the flow and that it doesn't feel natural. Interesting. Makes me wonder why authors even want to use it. Click on over if you haven't had a chance yet and let me know what YOU think.

-- Okay. Well. I looks like a remembered a few of my thoughts. I'm sure there was more, but instead of wracking my brain to remember it all, I'm going to hit publish, and be off to watch The Amazing Race premier, while I staple 600 book fair fliers to go out to the kids this week!

Have a lovely week everyone and get lots of reading done!