Jay Asher's "13 Reasons Why"

          Thirteen Reasons Why is a book written by Jay Asher. Its copyright date is 2007. Here is a short summary and review of this book.
          Clay is a regular high school boy. He's a good student, a nice guy, and has a normal personality. When he gets a package in the mail one afternoon, though, everything changes. They are a set of tapes sent out by Hannah Baker, a girl who previously went to Clay's school before committing suicide. She had recorded tapes of herself telling the listener 13 reasons why she killed herself. Each of the reasons is partially caused by a person, which means that each reason is a person. If you were sent these tapes, that mean that you were one of the 13 reasons why Hannah killed herself. When Clay learns this, he is mortified, feeling sympathy for Hannah and is sorry that he did anything to her, however he doesn't know what he did. As he begins to listen to these tapes, he learns things about the other people that were reasons why. He discovers things about them that were better left untouched, and finds out things about himself that he never imagined were true, like what other people, such as Hannah, thought about him, and why he took part in causing her death.
          The main conflict in this is how Clay wants to help Hannah out, but can't. Because she is dead, there is nothing else to do, and Clay resents this and wished that Hannah could have come to someone else, like a therapist, or even to Clay. As he listens to her speak and explain her life out, he is sad because it's over anyway, when he could have helped, or when he could have been there for her. The conflict is more internal, and it shows a lot about Clay's personality.
          The theme in this story is repent. It is mostly shown through what I stated in the paragraph above, because the whole story is conflicts, whether it's Hannah's conflicts of Clay's. Clay feels repent for not helping Hannah, and Hannah feels repent for getting on the paths that she chose to be on.
          My own thoughts on this book were very complicated. The story was interesting, but it was written in a gloomy, boring tone. I disliked the book for its tone, but loved the book for its story. The book altogether is not boring, but I have read better things. I would say that it's not bad, but it's not spectacular. However, it leans more towards being a good book than a bad one, so on a scale of 1-10, I would rate it about a 5.5. i would recommend this book to teenagers who like books about reality, some comedy, and a bit of darkness. Thanks for reading. Tune in later!

Ellen Wittlinger's "Hard Love"

 
          Hard Love is a book written by Ellen Wittlinger. The copyright date is 1999. Here is a short review of this book.
          John is an emotionless teenager who thinks that he has seen it all. His parents are divorced, his father is more involved in his many girlfirends and art fans than he is in his own son's life. His mother refuses to listen to him when anything bad happens, and her husband has plans on moving out of the city. His best and only friend Brian is too involved with getting girls to listen to him. Johns only outlet is the zines he reads. While reading, he comes across a zine with no title, written by "Marisol Guzman, Puerto Rican Cuban, Yankee Cambridge, Massachusetts, rich spoiled lesbian private-school-gifted-and-talented writer virgin looking for love." He is immediately drawn in, and feels like he needs to meet this girl, because she seems like a person that he wants to hang out with, and someone who would really have John figured out. So, he writes her to meet him at a cafe. Almost at once, they understand each other, and become fast friends. Marisol explains to John that she hates liars, and John couldn't agree more--except for the fact that most everything he says to Marisol about himself is a lie, even his own name! As they start to hang out together more, John begins to feel more and more close to her; perhaps too close. But can John keep his lies believable, or will he get tangled in them, and have nowhere to run? Will he risk confessing the truth and ruining his friendship with Marisol? So many things are happening to John, all because he can't escape his own words.
          There are a few main conflicts, all caused by one master conflict in this book: John lies too much. From what I can tell, it is the only socially acceptable way that he knows how to project himself. Most of the book, he is trying to be accepted by any crowd one way or another. From my point of view, the only way that he knows how to do this is by acting cool, not showing emotion, and avoiding his own true colors and his own real life. Because of this, he causes problems such as controversy, having to make up his own scenario, having to lie to others in order to get them to help maintain a lie that he has told someone, and even more knots that he gets himself twisted up in.
          There are two completely different themes in this book. One of them is that the truth will set you free. This is shown because John lies to everyone, and eventually gets lost in all of his lies and deceptions. He can't break free from it all, no matter how hard he tries. He can't undo things either, because it is too late to do so and he is already known as what he is perceived to be through his lies. Another theme is tragedy, because Marisol is a lesbian, and she is also the only one that John really feels like himself around, the only one that John has been interested in. John must face the facts that Marisol will never be anything more to him than a friend, and because he has trouble realizing that, he is on a path to screw himself up.
          Now it's time for my personal review on Hard Love. When I first heard about this book, I had high expectations. I had seen other web reviews on it which had stated that this book was an amazing work of art, and that it won its award for a reason. When I actually read the book, however, I was beyond disappointed. It displayed no depth besides the depression that was in every corner on John's life, and how he felt bad for mistreating his best friend, Brian. It gives you hardly any time to care about the characters, and if it does, those words are wasted on making you hate John and dislike his personality all together. The whole book was set in such a gloomy tone, and that was my first, and final impression on the book. Even one of my best friends had to read this book for school, and wound up using SparkNotes because she couldn't bear to read this horribly gloomy, boring, and all around pointless book anymore. The only time that you feel anything that is somewhat good for John is near to the end, where you feel sympathy and sadness for him. Considering that you feel sadness for the whole book, I would say that the end is nothing new anyway. I would not recommend this book to anyone. Don't waste your time on it. Thank you for reading! Check back soon for more blog entries.