Thirteen reasons why not?

A young life, full of promise, ended much too soon. By suicide. Teen suicide. The third leading cause of death among young people aged 15 to 24.

The story is Jay Asher's Thirteen reasons why. High school student Hannah Baker, bright, attractive, someone you'd like to be around. Only she's not there anymore. But she's left behind a little going-away present for some of those she's left behind. A set of cassette tapes naming thirteen people who, in Hannah's mind, played a part in her decision to end her life. Clay, one of the thirteen people, receives the tapes in the mail unexpectedly, and spends a torturous night listening to her voice and visiting places in their town where significant (to Hannah) events had transpired. Part of his motivation in listening to the tapes is fear. If he doesn't listen to the tapes, then send them on to the person whose "story" follows his, Hannah has arranged for another set of the tapes to be made public. Clay is also motivated to find out why Hannah feels he's partly responsible for her decision to kill herself.

There's no question Hannah went through some pretty torturous stuff after transferring to her new school. Being the new kid is never easy but things start out fairly well, with friendships developing with a some other people her age. But then it starts to go badly when she finds herself first objectified, then betrayed, then lied about, spied on, belittled, misunderstood, and then attends the teen party from hell where one unconscious girl is raped and another teen under the influence has a minor accident that eventually winds up costing another teen his life.

But Clay isn't really the cause of any of the bad things that happen to her. His behavior is pretty exemplary all around-- aside from being a little too smitten with Hannah to actually approach her, which, he finds out on the tapes, would have been quite welcome by Hannah. But she never allowed herself to communicate that to him. Indeed, that's the story's weakness. The fact that much of what she relates was misinformation about her. But it could also be viewed as a lack of communication. By her. She's only now taking the opportunity to clear the air after she's already dead (or soon will be) and the information can't save her. It can only hurt others. Her story is no longer a tragedy, it's a revenge fantasy. And it's a horrible thing she does to herself and to the others in her tragic tale-- however deserving of blame they may be. At some point she very deliberately made the decision to end her own life. She even goes to a school counselor to, supposedly, talk about some things that are bothering her. Then stops the exchange before the counselor can begin to understand her problems. Rather than using a service that was designed to help students in pain, she warped the process, going through the motions, but withholding any information that would have revealed the depths of her despair and instead leaves after saying that the exchange was helpful. And Clay? The good guy? The one she really liked and who liked her? She literally pushed him away.

This is not to belittle her pain but don't be fooled into assuming that Hannah is the tragic victim. She's not an innocent who at some point was driven to the (wrong) decision that her life wasn't worth living and that the human beings, flawed as they (and we) occasionally must be, are deserving of the punishment she metes out from beyond the grave.

Clay is the victim here. His perspective of events is often at odds with what Hannah is relating. But he'll get to find out something than Hannah will never know: that high school is something you can survive.

500 Essential Graphic novels (Review)

Gene Kannenberg, Jr. has compiled a book containing what he calls the 500 essential graphic novels : the ultimate guide. Now that's the sort of inflated title that's just begging to be punctured once or twice, but with 500 titles there's bound to be some undiscovered or forgotten gems.

And the book is pretty nicely organized, with graphic novels being divided into ten different genres: Adventure, Non-fiction, Crime and mystery, Fantasy, General fiction, Horror, Humor, Science fiction, Superheroes, and War, and with a two-page introduction to each genre. Most sections will begin with what Kannenberg calls a "top ten essential section," usually featuring a picture of the book cover and usually a page or a couple of panels from the interior of the work. Rounding out each section are some works not quite good enough for the top ten. Each title lists writers, artists, publisher and most recent year of publication, and even an ISBN! Each also has a star rating from one to five and an age rating (A for all, 12+, 15+ or 18+). There's also a plot summary and review for each. Each title also includes a short list of "See also" and "Further reading" titles. For each title there's also a number that appears on the top left hand corner of each title that shows a number over the number 500 -- as in number 18 or whatever of 500 essential graphic novels, sort of a non-ranking in the list that's not much use at all.

In the back there are indexes (or indices) with page listings for writers, artists, and titles. (Be careful with those page listings, however. Don't confuse them with the rank out of 500 numbers) There's also a separate list of publishers showing which titles they produced. They even have an index for the age ratings! Too bad they didn't think to include a separate index for the star ratings.

Whew! That's a lot of information. Spread out over 527 pages, that's really a lot. True, the graphics cover up a lot of that page space. But the book is printed on trade paperback size pages (about 7 inches tall by 5 inches wide) so it doesn't take much text to fill out the book. And the graphic novel page samples are really hard to read when they're reduced down enough to fit. So that tends to detract from the overall appeal of the book.

As for the titles, well, it's a pretty nice mix. Most of the ones you'd expect to find are here: Maus, Contract with God, Watchmen, Barefoot Gen, along with some surprises like Cheech Wizard, Sam and Max Surfin' the highway, The Amazing Mr. Pleebus and Indian summer. Lots of comic strips make appearances too, including The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, Liberty Meadows, and The complete Peanuts. No Doonesbury though.

As might be expected, the collection does tend to focus pretty heavily on American publications. Japan does have a few titles represented (their English adaptations, anyway). And the same goes for the Europeans. Maybe that's a minor quibble. And while the Superheroes don't predominate, their section does have over sixty titles listed, while War lists just 28.

But there's plenty to peruse. I developed quite a list of titles I need to seek out, and more than a few fond memories of past enjoyable reads. That's part of the fun of these greatest hits type lists. Flipping through pages and something catches your eye and you remember reading that back when it first came out and suddenly realize you're just grinning from ear to ear.

If you're not too familiar with graphic novels, this would be a very useful introduction to some excellent examples of the genre. And if you're really lucky, you'll be able to borrow a lot of these from your local library. How superheroic is that?