Analyzing Shakeyla Boulware's 'Thirteen Reasons Why'

“A 14-year-old girl in treatment for depression, reported that she was being bullied in school. She said that girls in her classes constantly made negative comments about her appearance, dress, and behavior. They excluded her from social activities despite her desire to participate. She said that the girls were telling lies about her to boys in the class, which was damaging her reputation. What upsets her the most was that an online site had been created in which students were encouraged to write all the reasons they hated her. She cried and said that she could not avoid the bullying even outside of school. She believed the only way to escape the bullying was to not exist anymore, and she confirmed that she was suicidal.”(Karen 2016) Bullying at the age of 13-19 increases the rate of depression, anxiety, suicide, and other mental health issues. Bullying is plaguing teens across the United States and is causing possible mental health issues later in victims’ lives. Each local community needs to take action to dull the effects bullying has on teens.

Page after page, Thirteen Reasons Why captivated me throughout the entirety of the story and left me weeping over the pain that Clay and Hannah experienced. Clay Jensen, a hardworking, overachieving high school boy, received a box of tape recordings from a girl who he’d never thought he’d hear from again—because she was dead. She committed suicide a week before and Clay was still in shock; feelings to which I could relate. Clay scavenged around town for clues about her life as he listened to the deranged voice of the girl he liked, Hannah Baker. He then learned her “reasons” for ending her life: people and actions—like the sexual harassments that multiple boys put her through or a death she felt she could have prevented—that left her broken and isolated.

There are seven tapes and each side of the tape is for a specific person who had a role in helping Hannah commit suicide. The first tape is addressed to Justin Foley who was Hannah’s first kiss. They had a sweet, innocent kiss, however, Justin decided to spread a rumor that much more happened, which lead Hannah to be called a “slut” for the rest of high school year.

After Clay leaves, Hannah hides in the closet and witnesses Jessica being raped by Bryce. Justin knew about the rape and let it happen. The eleventh person on the list is Jenny, a cheerleader who offered Hannah a ride home from the house party. She hit a stop sign while driving and did not tell the police, leading to a car accident, after this one of their classmates left the party and was killed, everyone thought he was drunk, Clay says that he was not.. The twelfth person was Bryce, who had raped Jessica and took advantage of Hannah. The thirteenth was Mr. Porter, the school counselor. Hannah secretly recorded a conversation they had, in which she expressed a desire to kill herself. Overwhelmed, Mr. Porter simply told Hannah that if she was unwilling to press charges against anybody, she should just try to move

Bullying is a problem in today’s society that occurs regularly among youth. It should be addressed because of the negative impact it has on the victim. It can change their life and change the way they act towards other people. I am against bullying, so therefore, in this essay, I will discuss the effects it has on people in terms of long-term effects, mental health, and suicide.

When hannah first moves to town she is desperate for friends. Once meeting Jessica hannah feels as though she can trust and confide in her. The friendship quickly comes to a halt when a student by the name of Alex releases a “hot list”. Jessica was listed as “worst ass” and Hannah was listed as “best ass”. This makes jessica jealous causing her to slap hannah and accuse her of seducing jessica’s boyfriend Alex.

In the end, Clay doesn’t have to wonder why Hannah killed herself. She explained the thirteen reasons, rather people, who impacted her life. During the past week, I have been reading Meg Cabot’s All-American Girl, and I have reach page 29. In All-American Girl, Samantha Madison is a controversial girl who just wants to be left alone. Sam and her family live in Washington, D.C. Lucy, her older sister, is a preppy cheerleader who is the most popular girl in school. Rebecca, her little sister, is a certified genius. The pages I have read so far have explained Sam, Rebecca, and Lucy’s relationship. While reading Thirteen Reasons Why, I was visualizing and questioning. After I was done reading Thirteen Reasons Why, I started predicting on the book I’m currently reading, All-American

Hannah’s problem and the problem of the book was Hannah being bullied. Her solution took a long time and she was never really sure until the end of the problems. She never had this thought until an event that triggered her to think this. She just went along with all the bullying and all the rumors spread. She didn’t want to kill herself in a painful way.

Thirteen Reasons Why is about a teenage girl, Hannah Baker, who committed suicide. Each chapter of the book is centered on her cassette tapes, which tell the audience every reason she presented as to why she killed herself. These tapes were sent out to the 13 people who Hannah believed had an impact on her decision to kill herself. The book begins when the narrator, Clay Jensen, arrives home from school and sees a box full of tapes on his doorstep. He takes the box inside, opens it, and finds seven audiotapes and thirteen stories.

Asher included the the character, Courtney, to show how significant reputation should be. To illustrate that idea, the author has Hannah describe Courtney as “Pretty girl. Pretty hair. Perfect skin” (93). Another example that portrays Courtney as the “perfect girl” is, “Courtney Crimson. The name sounds almost too perfect” (95). At this point in the story, Hannah is telling Courtney’s side of the tape and explaining that Courtney isn’t as perfect as she wants people to think she is. This evidence highlights that Courtney makes a big mistake showing Hannah who she really is and, “stabbing her in the back”. Courtney’s tape is important to the story because it shows how one little thing can ruin your reputation even if only twelve other people

As we tune into the show, we see a memorial shine tribute to a girl named Hannah Baker who had died weeks earlier. As the story goes on, we follow the main character Clay Jensen, who has trouble with emotions and feelings. He is depressed and has relapses and daydreams of Hannah during school hours. After school, Tony, a friend of Clay, drops him off at his house. There on Clay’s front porch is a brown package. Inside this package lies a box with a map and 13 tapes. As Clay plays one of the tapes on a boom box, he finds out it is Hannah’s suicide note and all the reasons she wanted to end her life. “Listen to everything and pass it on”, Hannah warns, or else a “trusted individual” will make the tapes go public. Of course, that would be bad for everyone. Clay accidentally breaks the device he was first used to listen to the tapes and now needs a device to play the tapes, so he

Jay Asher’s 13 Reasons Why does an extremely well job of going over the themes of loss and guilt, while also adding in a pinch of mystery. This is because when one of the main characters, Clay, comes home from school, he sees a package on his porch. After opening it, he sees it is filled with thirteen different tapes, but what was within them Clay did not know. Upon further inspection, Clay realizes that these tapes were recorded by Hannah Baker, his movie theatre co worker and long time crush. What makes 13 Reasons different from any teenage love story is that Hannah is dead, she commited suicide. However, until the tapes arrived and he listened to them, Clay did not know why.

The impact on one person can turn into a circle of impact, changing everyone's view of life around a person. In Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher the content in the book proves how impactful one person can be. Hannah who reveals her struggles though tapes shows how impactful her story is to clay who struggles with the realization that he is one of the reasons for her death. When Clay find the tapes Hannah starts by warning clay how he will learn things about her that he may not want to know as “ [she] hope[s] [he is] ready, because [she is] about to tell [him] the story of [her] life.” As Clay learns more he becomes conflicted as he wanted to know her, he wanted to help her through what was occurring in her life. Consequently the impact

The story of Courtney Crimson is shown in the fifth tape. She is known as a sweet, mostly well-liked girl, a personality which Hannah explains that she fell for. Following the event with Tyler, Hannah began to feel very excluded by Courtney Crimson, and even when Courtney asked her to come to a party she still felt a little bit of something going on. Courtney left hannah at that party, and later Hannah found out that Courtney had been spreading rumors about the things she’d found in Hannah’s top dresser drawer.

For Thirteen Reasons Why, I am going to explain the literary terms. Thirteen Reason is about a girl named, Hannah Baker who killed herself. Before Hannah killed herself she made 13 videos of why this person made her make that decision.