I read this book in two nights. Sort of a break from Anna Karenina even though I am really enjoying it. I loved it. The premise is: a boy in high school receives a package on his doorstep from a girl who committed suicide two weeks before. She says that there are 13 reasons why she killed herself and that each person who receives the tapes is one of those reasons. In listening to the tapes he hears her story. And he takes his walkman and a map she provides and walks around his town one night with her narration of her experience as a backdrop. It was sad and honest and I really liked it. I think it is an important book for high school kids to read. Because it really demonstrates the impact you can have on someone without even realizing it. Especially in high school at that age when everything feels bigger and harder and more lonely because you don't have the skills yet to negotiate everything that can be thrown at you. Also it is important that the book shows that there was a point where she could have reached out for help but in the end she chose not to and she knew she was choosing not to. So it was of course in the end a choice she did not have to make.