Thirteen Reasons Why

Now… this may seem like just another documentary or sci-fi book about someone’s suicide ...

As of 2017, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Every year, almost 45,000 people commit suicide, and annually, suicide costs the US about $51 billion. But, aside from all the statistics, aside from the money aspect, those 45,000 victims, are people, with families, friends and lives, and that’s what people seem to forget. Attempting to understand how devastating a suicide can be, without actually experiencing one, can be hard, but, readers are in luck because, there is a new book and movie series (on Netflix) called Thirteen Reasons Why, a true story of Hannah Baker a young girl who killed herself in the early 90’s. Now… this may seem like just another documentary or sci-fi book about someone’s suicide story, but it goes far deeper than that. Within the true story of Hannah Baker, comes a mystery, and an ending of despair and jail time. The book is a cross between what life is like for friends and family of Hannah, after her death, and in a stranger series of events, somehow, Hannah left a collection of tapes filmed by herself, expressing why she killed herself and whose fault it is. But, the story gets even more twisted, within all the tapes Hannah created, are secrets, dark tragic secrets that happened to her a month before she killed herself. These secrets incriminate her own friends, family, and even, the love of her life, Clay Jensen. “You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.” ― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why (GoodReads) . My personal opinion on the book and movie Thirteen Reasons Why (because I’ve read & seen both) is that I think the main idea of the story is very powerful. Suicide is not something people can choose to ignore until someone clos...