Devyn Gardiner
In the novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, Hanna Baker sends out tapes to thirteen people who supposedly made her take her own life. This book is extremely intriguing although, Hanna often says that she had no one to turn to and that she was always fighting by herself. However this isn’t always the case in Hanna Baker’s life, she had many people who cared about her but she built up a barrier and shut them out. This is a common symptom of suicide and the reason that this book bothers me so much is because of how real it is compared to society. In society suicide is a tough topic to addressed properly in many cases so people often don’t want anything to do with it. In Hanna’s eyes she had no one to trust because of her past experiences. Understandingly, Hanna didn’t tell any of her classmates because of her fake reputation they had given her so she felt alone in the world. Even though suicide has been addressed in many past situations such as Amanda Todd, who was a teenage girl who was much like Hanna Baker. Amanda Todd put a video out on YouTube sharing her story about why she committed suicide, her story devastated people around the world and spread awareness. Hanna Baker did a similar video that Amanda Todd did but Hanna’s was much less public and way more personal. In both of these situations it was much too late before society actually recognised the seriousness of them. Addressing suicide earlier would help prevent the problem and save many people. Everyone should show compassion and understanding toward this topic and not just disregard it. We can help prevent suicide by thinking about what we say before we say it. Bulling is one of the factors that can cause thoughts about suicide and we should realise that it can have a major impact on someone’s life. We also should go out of our way to make people seem less alone in the world, some examples would be smiling at people in the hallways and talking to them during free time.