Literature Review

 Literature Review- Thirteen Reasons Why

The series that I chose is 13 Reasons Why. This series revolves around high school student Clay Jensen and the aftermath of Hannah Baker's suicide (His classmate). Before Hannah's Death, she left behind a box of cassette tapes in which she details the reasons why she chose to end her life, as well as the people she believes, are responsible for her death. In each cassette tape, it has a recording of Hannah explaining who caused her to commit suicide and why. In the story, the tapes are passed to people who were in those tapes as they had something to do with her death. In this case, Clay will find out who are the people are responsible for her death. The story also showed flashbacks viewed from Hannah's perspective in words that are in italics.

The main reason why Hannah committed suicide was that she was often judged, discriminated and mainly bullied based on her looks and personality from other schoolmates and when she was seeking urgent help from her school counselor, Mr. Kevin Porter, he fails to extend his help to her. As such, because she was not able to carry the load of hopelessness, she eventually lost all hope in life and committed suicide.

Other than Hannah's Death, the book also touches on the problems faced by other students such as not being able to fit in with the norms of society and discrimination

After reading the book, I feel sad for Hannah because although she tried her best to seek help from friends and family by approaching them, they would always turn her down because of misunderstandings.

This series is quite meaningful to me as it explores and depicts a wide range of social issues affecting youths in this day and age including suicide, bullying, racism, and gender discrimination. Other than that, it also highlights betrayal, which all youths may have gone through at some point in their life. From this story, I have learned to look out for all my friends as they may be facing some challenges in life and if they are not comforted by the help of friends, they may not be able to handle the stress and may try to do what Hannah did with her life. I also learned that everyone is loved, and everyone has a purpose and everyone has a life waiting to be lived ahead of them.