Novel vs. TV Portrayal of Thirteen Reasons Why

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Thirteen Reasons Why is the story of Clay Jensen, who is one of the final recipients of a set of tapes made by a classmate who committed suicide, Hannah Baker. Throughout the day or so time it takes Clay to listen to all of the tapes, he finds out new tidbits and events that happened to Hannah during her time at their high school, which ultimately led to her demise. This was my second time reading this book, and this time I skimmed (because not only have I read the book, but I've also seen both seasons of the Netflix adaption of the book, and this time I read with the differences between cinematic version versus original copy in mind. The biggest, and most criticized difference between the book and the show is the way Hannah kills herself, where the text says she "took a handful of sleeping pills" () but the last scene in the Netflix series shows Hannah slicing open her arm. I would assume that when Jay Asher wrote the novel back in the early 2000s that suicide wasn't performed often by mutilation, but in today's society, that is one of the most prominent ways. By writing for Hannah to kill herself via self-harm in the show, I feel like it really set the tone for victims of suicide everywhere by showing the effects of not only the victim, but the loved ones of the victim as well. There are other small differences as well, like the relationship between Hannah's parents in the book versus the series, the characters' language use in the series, and Clay's status at their high school, but I feel like those were all adapted and modified to fit into today's societal viewing party, whereas most of these issues wouldn't be considered jaw-dropping issues back in the early 2000's.

When reading this a book a second time, I also looked deeper into the English teacher, Mr.Porter's, role in Hannah's demise. In the show, he is a guidance counselor, who not only completely ignores Hannah's comment of no longer wanting to live, but lacks any kind of sympathy that a person of that status should have at least a little bit of. He also did not follow any type of educator protocol, which wasn't a rule back when the book was written, but in today's school, any kind of sexual abuse or assault committed by or to a student is to be reported immediately. Mr. Porter didn't even call Hannah's parents to tell her what she was saying during their meeting time, which should have been a huge red flag for readers.

Because I plan to teach middle schoolers, I would not dare touch this book. I say that mainly because of the content, but I'm sure by the time I begin teaching, a new season will have been released and the majority of my students will at least know what the show pertains to. However, if I were teaching high school, I would definitely try to incorporate this book into maybe a Lit Circle group or during a unit on poetry or digital media or dialogue. It would be a lot easier to swing this text into a high school classroom than a middle school classroom.

I still will always be a fan of this book (and the series) because it is something that needs to be constantly talked about instead of hidden away in the shadows.

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