Jay Asher’s book, “13 Reasons Why,” starts off with seven cassette tapes, two audio messages on each side, except the very last tape, reason number 13. Each cassette side is dedicated to a person who has contributed to Hannah Baker’s suicide.

Two weeks after Hannah takes her own life, Clay Jensen receives the audio tapes, and is trying to figure out which number he is and the reason behind it.

Jensen went to school with Hannah, and has had a crush on her since she moved into town, so how did he contribute to Hannah’s suicide? As he listens to the tapes, Clay walks around town going to each destination Hannah mentions. She describes what happened at each significant destination, as he follows along on a map he was given two weeks prior.

A series is coming to Netflix on March 31, based on the book. The previews look amazing and it will be interesting to see how they interpret this book on film. There are two ways to look at this story: to learn and see that everything you do has an effect on a person’s life, or that Hannah Baker simply just expects everyone to come to her rescue.

Throughout the book, Clay is informed of the things that have happened to Hannah to make her feel like no one cares about her and that if she left the world, no one would notice. What she doesn’t realize is that there are people out there, someone like Clay, that are willing to step up and help her, but she simply refuses the help.

What I didn’t think worked out too well was how the author portrays Hannah Baker to expect her peers to know how she is feeling about certain situations. She lets things happen without her say, she doesn’t speak up or try to relay what she feels. For Hannah, those situations made her feel insecure and not wanted, which is something Asher expands on throughout the story.

What I did like about the book is how Asher had Hannah Baker make audio tapes instead of doing something basic like a suicide letter. The events that she recorded are specific events with certain people that led Hannah to feel that she had no say in her life.

Asher had me confused on Clay’s part, it’s not Clay that did her wrong, it’s someone else and the memory of that, that makes her push Clay away. So I thought, why even send Clay the audio tapes? Then again, everything has a reason.

After Clay listens to the audio tapes, he comes to the revelation that maybe if he just pushed a little harder, she could’ve still been here. Everything connects and everything has a link to a certain situation, something that made you want to keep reading to figure out that one burning question, “Why?” One piece of advice we can use from Hannah Baker is “When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything… affects everything.”