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Thirteen Reasons Why

by Jay Asher · 2007

"Thirteen Reasons Why" is Jay Asher's 2007 debut young adult novel about Clay Jensen, a high school student who comes home to find a mysterious box of cassette tapes on his doorstep. The tapes were recorded by Hannah Baker… more

First published 2007 · 288 pages · English

28 quotes ★ 3.83 (1,033,658) Fiction

Quotes from the Book

You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.
No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same.
You can't stop the future You can't rewind the past The only way to learn the secret ...is to press play.
A lot of you cared, just not enough.
But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.
If my love were an ocean, there would be no more land. If my love were a desert, you would see only sand. If my love were a star- late at night, only light. And if my love could grow wings, I'd be soaring in flight.
You can't go back to how things were. How you thought they were. All you really have is...now.
Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don't understand. Thoughts that aren't even true—that aren't really how we feel—but they're running through our heads anyway because they're interesting to think about.
If you hear a song that makes you cry and you don't want to cry anymore, you don't listen to that song anymore. But you can't get away from yourself. You can't decide not to see yourself anymore. You can't decide to turn off the noise in your head.
It's hard to be disappointed when what you expected turns out to be true.
Soul Alone by Hannah Baker I meet your eyes you don't even see me You hardly respond when I whisper hello Could be my soul mate two kindred spirits Maybe we're not I guess we'll never know My own mother you carried me in you Now you see nothing but what I wear People ask you how I'm doing You smile and nod don't let it end there Put me underneath God's sky and know me don't just see me with your eyes Take away this mask of flesh and bone and See me for my soul alone
When you try rescuing someone and discover they can't be reached, why would you ever throw that back in their face?
I wanted people to trust me, despite anything they'd heard. And more than that, I wanted them to know me. Not the stuff they thought they knew about me. No, the real me. I wanted them to get past the rumors. To see beyond the relationships I once had, or maybe still had but that they didn't agree with.
Like driving along a bumpy road and losing control of the steering wheel, tossing you—just a tad—off the road. The wheels kick up some dirt, but you're able to pull it back. Yet no matter how hard you try to drive straight, something keeps jerking you to the side. You have so little control over anything anymore. And at some point, the struggle becomes too much—too tiring—and you consider letting go. Allowing tragedy... or whatever... to happen.
I hope you're ready, because I'm about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended. And if you're listening to these tapes, you're one of the reasons why.
A flood of emotions rushes into me. Pain and anger. Sadness and pity. But most surprising of all, hope.
I sat. And I thought. And the more I thought, connecting the events in my life, the more my heart collapsed.
I'm listening to someone give up. Someone I knew—someone I liked. I'm listening... but still, I'm too late.
You can hear rumors. But you can't know them.
Sometimes we have thoughts that even we don’t understand. Thoughts that aren’t even true—that aren’t really how we feel—but they’re running through our heads anyway because they’re interesting to think about. If you could hear other people’s thoughts, you’d overhear things that are true as well as things that are completely random. And you wouldn’t know one from the other. It’d drive you insane. What’s true? What’s not? A million ideas, but what do they mean?
That's why you did it. You wanted your world to collapse around you. You wanted everything to get as dark as possible.
Maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal to you Zach. But now, I hope you understand. My world was collapsing. I needed those notes. I needed any hope those notes might have offered. And you? You took that hope away. You decided I didn’t deserve to have it.
I can't. You can't rewrite the past.
Fun drunks make a nice addition to any party. Not looking to fight. Not looking to score. Just looking to get drunk and laugh.
I’m sorry.” Once again, those were the words. And now, anytime someone says I’m sorry, I’m going to think of her.
But sometimes there’s nothing left to do but move on.
Because when you're posed, you know someone's watching. You put on your very best smile. You let your sweetest personality shine.
And after I dropped him off, I took the longest possible route home... I explored alleys and hidden roads I never knew existed. I discovered neighborhoods entirely new to me. And finally... I discovered I was sick of this town and everything in it.

Did you know?

  • The novel is told through cassette tapes that Hannah Baker recorded before her death.
  • The story alternates between Hannah's recorded voice and Clay Jensen's live reactions as he listens.
  • It was Jay Asher's debut novel, published in 2007.
  • The book was a New York Times bestseller and was named a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults in 2008.
  • Netflix adapted the novel into a series titled "13 Reasons Why" that premiered in 2017.

About Jay Asher

Jay Asher is an American author born September 30, 1975, in Arcadia, California. "Thirteen Reasons Why" (2007) was his debut novel; he later co-wrote "The Future of Us" with Carolyn Mackler and wrote the New York Times bestseller "What Light" (2016).

More about the author →

About the book

"Thirteen Reasons Why" is Jay Asher's 2007 debut young adult novel about Clay Jensen, a high school student who comes home to find a mysterious box of cassette tapes on his doorstep. The tapes were recorded by Hannah Baker, a classmate who recently died by suicide, and on them she lays out thirteen reasons—each tied to a person and an incident—that she says led to her decision. As Clay listens through the night, following a map Hannah left behind, he pieces together the chain of events and confronts his own place among the names.

The book's dual narration interweaves Hannah's voice on the tapes with Clay's reactions in real time, giving the story the structure of an unfolding mystery. Its central themes are the cumulative weight of bullying, rumor, and casual cruelty, and the idea that small actions can ripple outward with consequences no one intends or foresees. It also grapples directly with sexual assault, isolation, and the difficulty of asking for help.

A bestseller that spent years on the New York Times list, "Thirteen Reasons Why" became one of the defining YA novels of its era and was adapted into a widely watched Netflix series in 2017. The book and adaptation both sparked significant public debate about how stories depict suicide, cementing the novel's place in conversations about mental health in teen fiction.

Key characters

  • Hannah BakerHigh school student who records the tapes explaining her decision to end her life
  • Clay JensenNarrator and classmate who receives and listens to Hannah's tapes
  • Bryce WalkerClassmate whose actions are among the reasons on the tapes
  • Justin FoleyBoy involved in an early rumor about Hannah
  • Jessica DavisFormer friend of Hannah's named on the tapes
  • Mr. PorterSchool counselor Hannah turns to for help

Book details

First published
2007
Length
288 pages
Reading time
2 hours
Author
Jay Asher
Genre
Fiction
Goodreads rating
3.83 (1M ratings)

Movie & TV adaptations

  • IMDb
    13 Reasons Why 2017

    Netflix drama series adapting the novel, running for four seasons

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