13 Reason Why

          This past semester I chose to read Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and it was one of the few books that I enjoyed reading. The novel is a first person perspective of an average high school girl who increasingly gains popularity and attention throughout her years, most of it negative. Hannah Baker, the main character, shares her horrid experiences through a series of tapes that are heard by everyone who hurt her. She was a victim of bullying, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, depression, and other issues that teenagers face everyday, making this a very interesting novel for me to read and raise my awareness for my peers. Another main controversy throughout the plot is change in behavior when it is a group of attackers instead of one person alone, as shown most commonly among sports teams and other posses.
         Besides the ending of the book, the rest of the story was not easy to predict, because each tape was focused on different people and situations. Hannah’s tapes are meant to explain and give reasons behind her final solution to her suffering, giving her “thirteen reasons why”. Overall, I really enjoyed and appreciated the way in which Asher structured his novel with pause and play buttons to easily identify between a tape playing and live dialogue. If I could change this book in any way, I would not do anything except add more girl-to-girl conflicts in the place of some girl-to-boy conflicts, because I think that bullying and gossip amongst young women is more common than sexual harassment and objectification from young men. Aside from the minor changes, I would be thrilled to read a version of this book where the main character is a male and the author addresses the many issues that they can be confronted with in their teen years.

-Damian Marin