Novel Review: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

            Well. We’ve all had our share of depression, right? Right. Sometimes authors just want to shed a little light on a topic that’s hard to swallow, and suicide is one of those stickers that lodges itself in your throat. No one wants to talk about it. Why? I don’t know, but Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher gave me a little more insight into how everyone affects everyone.

            I had never really thought about it before, but Hannah Baker is right. Everyone does affect everyone, and whether we like it or not, our lives intertwine with EVERYONE ELSE’S ON THE ENTIRE PLANET. Let me give you an example.

            I may know someone who lives in Colorado who teaches a kid whose parent runs a business that has dealings in California. Well, the California business trades and has close ties with corporations in Japan, and this corporation deals with the distribution of emergency supplies to third world countries, and one shipment going out has the boss’s right hand man on board. The right hand man knows a worker in Africa that’s from New Zealand, who’s a recorded artist with three albums, who works with relief efforts to dig wells in this country their relieving. The kids in the country go to schools built by a Russian missionary who attended seminary in France and made several European friends, including a French woman who works with an American who lives in Sweden now, and this American is married to an Icelandic woman who has British friends, including my own cousin. My cousin knows me. And I may know someone . . . .

            You get the picture.

            That being said, we affect everyone we come into contact with. And Jay Asher displays this really well in Thirteen Reasons Why. Clay Jensen’s receiving of the tapes is a catalyst to a whole world of introspection. How did he make Hannah Baker’s life different? How did he interact with the very people who betrayed her and made her life miserable? Did he take time to know her parents and even her? He felt extreme guilt, overall, because her reputation scared him. And because he didn’t get to know her so they’d talk and she’d have someone to vent to, she bottled everything up. And when she bottled everything up, she got to thinking. And when she got to thinking, she thought no one truly cared and decided that her life was meaningless anyway; why not end it?

            You see? Human strings are entangling.

            The novel hit close to home for me. With God’s amazing help, I’ve persuaded two friends out of suicide. They started caring because someone else did. They saw the value in life because someone saw value in them.

            Looks like this review turned into more of an essay-like thing, huh?

            Well, let me quickly break down what I thought of the novel. Plot was interesting, and I’ve never seen a book that deals with suicide deal with it like this before. Everything else has the victim’s family and stuff looking back, but this was from the victim’s viewpoint herself, which was neat, and sad. Characters were real—and sometimes infuriating. I wanted to personally kick Bryce Walker below the belt, and the same with Justin, who let Courtney get raped. And I felt bad for Clay because he wanted so badly to tell Hannah not to do it, that she was valuable . . . but it was too late. That hurt the most. Mechanics and grammar were fine, and the viewpoint was really done well. The book would have dragged and suffered under anything other than first-person present tense.

            Overall, Jay Asher did a really good job handling a prickly topic with gentle hands. Brutal, but gentle. Eight flipped pages out of Ten.

Novel Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

            I find it odd I stay up so late to write reviews for a blog I don’t think anyone’s reading. If you’re here, give me a, “Hey, gurl, hey. ;-D” (Just kidding, you can say whatever. Or nothing.)

            I’ve come to something I probably have no business reviewing because of its widespread admiration: a classic. Now, I know you’ll probably skip over this review if you loved the book, but that won’t stop me from writing it.

            Part of me considered making this a letter to the main antagonist of Rebecca. I think that would have been interesting. However, it’s almost midnight, and I don’t think my brain can function that way this late at night. And it would probably come across more crass and sarcastic and mean than I would like it to. I’d like to be objective, but when you’re as opinionated as I am, it’s hard to keep your mouth shut about anything you experience. And oftentimes you end up offending someone. Even if what you say is the truth.

            Several points stood out to me while reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. The first was the tagline on the top of the book, something about it being the unsurpassed masterpiece of romantic suspense, or some bullcrap like that. Yeah, I said it. BULLCRAP.

            For one, I the romance in the plot stood out not a bit, and when there was passion between Mrs. de Winter and Max, it was in a time of crisis, which puts the human instinct blatantly forward. The urge to hold someone when under an immense amount of fear and stress usually overrides irritability and the fear’s cold stone wedged between your heart and stomach, and you reach out to the person you trust most. For Max, it was his wife. And while this could be seen as romantic, I see it as desperate. If someone can point out the romance to me, please feel free to do so.

            Here’s my second problem with the title: “suspense.” I find more suspense watching the Olympics (which, by the way, I am highly enjoying). The feeling that there’s more to Rebecca’s death than first seen is automatic, but the overriding puke of unneeded detail and mundane niceties du Maurier jammed between the pages dampens all prospect of being suspended in . . . well, suspense. Not once did I beg for details to be revealed, and when the big reveal did come (make that the two big reveals), I simply raised my eyebrow and said, “Hmm.” Nodded a bit. Actually, I begged for the novel to be over. The novel would have been MUCH better if Max had been found out, and if Mrs. de Winter had been harboring a little love connection with Frank. That’s what I thought was going to happen, and when du Maurier dragged us inch by torturous inch through London traffic near the end, I wanted to scream with frustration. Nothing that I predicted happened, and it was most disappointing. Not because I was wrong, but because the novel fell flat with extraneous things and unexplored territory. Again, if someone can please point out what was so suspenseful about the novel, be my guest.

            HOWEVER. I did find Rebecca to be a most intriguing non-character, and the fact that she was present without being present was really neat. I loved how she haunted Max in the most painful ways, and her antagonism without her being physically present really was something I myself would like to incorporate into my technique. Bravo for that, du Maurier.

            Overall, I would never read Rebecca again. Nor would I recommend it to anyone else. Not only did my above points make it drudgery to read, I hated how the characters cursed God’s name so many times. That put burrs in my blanket. Hot burrs. In fact, I was so non-impressed, I put Rebecca on paperbackswap.com and gladly mailed it to the next poor sucker who wanted it. Maybe I should have attached a warning note: “The Not-So Romantic or Suspenseful Non-Masterpiece of Romantic Suspense.” Something like that. Three flipped pages out of Ten.