Teen Suicide Book Climbs Charts

A book about teenage suicide is quietly becoming a bestseller, and in an article about it, The New York Times devotes rare ink to the Young Adult genre. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, consists of transcripts of tape recordings made by a suicide victim before she killed herself. Experts say the book’s popularity represents teens’ growing fascination with the topics of death and dying. According to Christian Harvey, a 15-year-old fan of Thirteen Reasons, “I think the whole message of the book is to be careful what you do to people, because you never know what they’re going through. You can really hurt somebody, even with the littlest thing.”