Blig Post 12/1: Thirteen Reasons Why

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, is a young adult novel set in current time. Hannah Baker has just killed herself, but before her passing she made thirteen tapes, each tape about a specified person and why they were responsible for her death. When Clay Jensen receives these tapes,he wonders how he was responsible. As far as he could tell, they were friendly. Jay Asher writes an intriguing story about suicide and the unfortunate life of Hannah Baker, a suburban teenager. Hannah Baker a perfectionist, attempted to create an ideal life the lead to her unfortunate demise.

    Hannah Baker had awful rumors made up about her, witnessed awful events and had unforgivable things happen to her, which clearly lead to her depression. But there was a much deeper cause; Hannah Baker had her life pictured in her head, perfectly. Even if these terrible things hadn’t happened, she would, inevitably, have her downfall.  

For example, the first tape is about her first kiss with Justin Foley. Many nights leading up to the first day of school she had the same dream about her first kiss, it played out exactly the same each time; and that’s how she wanted the real one to be like. She’s on top of a jungle-gym, and her love is at the bottom waiting for her, she slides down, he catches her and they kiss. That’s exactly how it happened. Afterwards, her hopes were that she would be with Justin for much longer, but that’s not how things played out. He made up a rumor stating that they did a little more than just kissing. On the tape Hannah says the awful rumor started the snowball of her ruin, but truly, I think just the fact that he ruined her perfect image of the beginning of high school is what started it. From this, the snowball effect started, it wasn’t the awful rumors or the horrible things that happened that was what killed her, it was her image of a perfect life that was ruined, that killed her.

The book is written from the perspective of two characters; Clay Jensen is listening to the tapes and reacting, and Hannah is speaking from the tapes, explaining to us about how she got hurt. But really it’s from Clay’s perspective, we understand what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking, but we don’t with Hannah. Hannah is more of the author’s voice, unlike Clay who is more of the character’s voice. The book is missing Hannah’s thoughts and we don’t know if she’s crying or shaking from rage.

This could be the author’s purpose, having us readers, read Hannah’s voice as our own. If we had these things happen to us, how would we be feeling as we told someone? The author has us understand Hannah as ourselves so we could interpret what she was thinking. If the author had included Hannah’s voice, it probably would’ve overshadowed Clay’s voice, and the author wanted to emphasize Clay’s emotions, so we feel similar reactions.

Jay Asher writes about themes of depression, suicide and perfectionism, as he includes the reader as a part of the story. I can relate to Hannah; I want a perfect life and if one thing is ruined, it  would most likely upset me and most people can say the same. However, Jay Asher creates a realistic character that emphasizes how high expectations can ruin even the best moments in life. Hannah Baker killed herself, the reader is Hannah Baker.