This week’s staff pick comes from the writer Jay Asher and it’s his debut young adult novel Thirteen Reasons Why. Librarians from FTPL were lucky enough to hear him speak at this year’s New Jersey Library Association Annual Conference and he was fantastic! Funny, insightful and engaging, he made everyone in the room want to pick up a copy.
“Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why.
Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.” —Amazon
