English 485: Expedition Adolescence

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher is a controversial yet important novel for adolescents to read.  In light of the controversy surrounding the Netflix adaptation of the novel, Thirteen Reasons Why has initiated global discussions regarding teenage depression, suicide, and bullying.  However, the Netflix series drew a great amount of criticism due to the sensitive subject matter.  For me, though, the Netflix adaptation could not have come at a better time.  The first episode of the series aired just one month after one of my classmates committed suicide.  It came as a massive shock to everyone who knew him.  He was funny, sweet, and he always seemed cheerful in our shared German class.  He was an actor, playing parts in many theatre productions, but he used those skills to hide his struggle with depression.  None of us saw the signs, and when Thirteen Reasons Why came out, it initiated a conversation that helped my friends and I who were struggli...

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'...

When I first began to watch the Netflix series  13 Reasons Why,  I had no idea that there was a book out until my peers around me informed me. My overall reaction to the book was that it was a good story and one that needed to be told. What I liked about the book was that a few of the scenes, characters, and situations in the book were different from the TV show. One of the main things that stood out to me that was so different in the book compared to the show was the way that Hannah killed herself. In the show she slits her wrist and dies in the bathtub surrounded by all her blood compared to the book where she takes a numerous amount of sleeping pills in order to kill herself. My question to the author would be “Why do you think Netflix displayed different scenes and personalities in the show compared to the book?”. There is no doubt in my mind that Jay Asher displayed the life of adolescents perfectly. In high school you have to deal with overly aggressive boys, rumors, te...

I have to say first that I have never watched the Netflix series of this novel, and that was done so very intentionally. It is not easy for me to so readily emerge myself into content this deep and emotional if I can help it. Apart from my bias of not particularly enjoying this topic of reading I thought that the novel was written very well. The author was clever in her style and craft and I think it made it extremely effective. One way she did that, that stood out to me was her differentiation between Hannah and Clay's voice. Using italics to specify Hannah's voice was a smart move because the fact that Hannah has commentary within her own stories, it would be very confusing to follow. Besides, in the Spanish language, it uses italics to specify quotations all the time, not quotation marks.  As far as the flow of the story is concerned, I felt Asher knew what she was doing. The story flowed and never seemed like it was too much for me to take. Having Clay's thoughts and s...

      In the beginning, I was a little hesitant to read Thirteen Reasons Why . I purposely did not watch the Netflix series because of the content matter. While I was reading the book I realized that it was not as bad as I thought. I was feeling odd while reading what her tapes entailed but, this book is not what the Netflix series has stirred up in pop culture. Additionally, I love the language that Jay Asher uses in his novel. When Hannah is speaking and describing how she has felt in some of the reasons why she completed suicide, I can relate to those emotions in some ways. The quote that stuck out to me the when has dealings with Zach and Marcus. She begins, " I pretended not to notice him. Not because I had anything against him, but because my heart and my trust were in the process of collapsing. And that collapse created a vacuum in my chest. Like every nerve in my body was withering in...(85)." I can recall two boys whom I can pinpoint have made me feel the w...

Suicide is a tough subject no matter what the age group that's it's targeted towards. I think 13 Reasons Why  is an effective look at the effect that suicide can have on your peers. Personally, I have trouble connecting with this book because I feel that Clay and Hannah are not reliable narrators and often have conflicting interests. The most important part of this novel is explaining how the events slowly lead Hannah to her final decision and how much social image can have an impact on an adolescent. I think that this would be a difficult book to teach because there isn't an age that suddenly makes this book less shocking and horrific making it difficult recommend to a teenager. Suicide is a difficult subject to teach because most adolescent novels contain the idea of dealing with death and how to come to terms with it. I think the part where Clay listens to the final tape leaves a lasting impact on the reader simply to the raw emotion that comes through the page. This s...

I think Asher was pretty accurate when it comes to his portrayal of adolescence. Rumors happen in every high school. In my experience, I can remember being part of the group that spread rumors but also on the end that rumors were made about. When you are young and naive, you don't realize the impact rumors can actually have on people's confidence and perception of themselves. I know for me personally, the rumor that was made about me made me angry and affected how I acted around certain people. Asher portrays the rumors as lighthearted, particularly with the list that Alex Standall made. This is how most of the gossip in high schools are in my opinion. People think they are just jokes and don't have much impact, but Asher shows just how impactful they can be. The first rumor that Justin Foley helped spread changed the way people saw Hannah. Slut shaming is a problem because of the hypocrisy that it entails. The jocks applauded Justin for supposedly having sex with Hannah,...