5 Books About Suicide for World Suicide Prevention Day

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. According to the World Health Organization, someone takes their own life every 40 seconds. Here are five books that deal with suicide.

If you or a loved one are at risk, please act before it’s too late. In the United States, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. If you live outside of the United States, please check your national health organizations for similar information.

1. Thirteen Reasons Why – Jay Asher
  
  Goodreads
  Both immensely popular as a book and a Netflix show, Thirteen Reasons Why is currently one of the most talked-about books dealing with suicide. Clay Jenson receives a package containing tapes of recordings by his classmate Hannah Baker, who committed suicide two weeks earlier. The tapes explain, in thirteen reasons, why she took her own life.

1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  
  Goodreads
  It’s hard to have a list like this without including this classic American novel. The book describes the main character’s descent into madness and depression. The only book published during her lifetime, Plath committed suicide just a month after it was released in the U.K.

1. Dying to Be Free: A Healing Guide for Families After a Suicide by Beverly Cobain and Jean Larch
  
  Goodreads
  Advice for the families of those who have committed suicide. Hopefully, it’s not a book that any of you will ever need to read.

1. Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford
  
  Goodreads
  This is a young adult novel that follows a young man after a failed suicide attempt. It deals with LGBT issues and follows him while he’s in the psychiatric ward of a hospital.

A World Without You by Beth Revis

Goodreads
Bo and Sofia are students at a school for troubled teenagers. After Sofia commits suicide, Bo, who is convinced that he can travel through time, tries everything he can to try to reach her, even if that means succumbing to his own madness.