I'm one of the very few people who strongly disliked Thirteen Reasons Why, so maybe I should explain to you why.

I hate Thirteen Reasons Why. And here’s why.

Most of all, it glamorises suicide.

I'm putting this at the top because I can't believe I missed it in my original review. And this is a controversial point, because most of my Goodreads friends, whose opinions I would hold up as gospel, loved this book for its realistic and harrowing portrayal of teen suicide.

This book is one big glamorous monument to Hannah's suicide.

To me, it feeds the myths that a lot of teens hold about suicide, rather than debunk them.

Let me start off by saying that all pain is, eventually, temporary. When I think about the worst pain I've ever gone through - depression, painful and invasive surgery, grief - I thoughtn it would never end. But it did. And it always does. Yes, it will hurt like hell. Yes, it will feel as though it's never going to. But, yes, it ends. Eventually. And you have to be strong and extremely brave and honest, but there will be a day when you will look back on your worst pain and it will be a memory.

That is why suicide is never the answer.

So, what's the reason behind this bizarre, obvious, late-night PSA from the brilliant mind of a bat-shit crazy reader from the minority? [hahahaha].

I think this book encourages suicide.

There, I said it. I know it's a strong and sweeping and dramatic statement to make. I don't think that Asher wanted it to be that way. I'm not trying to accuse Asher of actively encouraging suicide or anything.

But.

I have felt suicidal before. Briefly, never seriously. And yet, the thought that I don't think is that uncommon went something like this:

"When I'm dead, they'll all be sorry."

Am I projecting my own experiences onto this book? Maybe. But, when you write about something as sensitive as suicide, I think that possibility is always out there.

This book encourages that line of thinking.

Let me tell you, emotionally wrecked teenagers: when you are dead, you are freaking gone. You will never grow up. You will never see your parents again. You will never have another moment that makes you feel happy or special in the here and now. You are gone forever.

But life will go on for those around you. They won't be sorry when you're dead. Or maybe they will be, but you know what? They'll still be alive. They'll still have life. You won't. They'll get to move on. You never will.

But Hannah Baker kills herself. And it's a dramatic, redemptive, cataclysmic act. Hannah Baker sends the tapes, and she becomes the still point of the turning world. She is Clay's Lost Lenore, the beautiful and romantic and unknowable girl who will live on forever in his memory. Hannah Baker kills herself, and she makes all those people who ever hurt her sorry.

You can tell me that 13RW is all about learning to help the people around us and think about the consequences of our actions. I'm sorry, readers, I love that you guys could get something wonderful and life-affirming and heartbreaking out of this book, but I just couldn't get past the fact that it's Hannah who teaches these lessons. Hannah dies, and she becomes every romanticised suicide cliché: the omniscient, omnipresent avenging angel, the tragic heroine. And I'm sorry, but that's not how suicide works. As much as Asher pays lip service to the fact that Hannah Baker Didn't Have To Die, well, she kinda did. Because didn't her suicide work out just great for everybody? Skye might finally get some of Clay's, um, 'help.' The rapist was exposed, the peeping tom was exposed, every person who'd been mean or unfair to Hannah was exposed and made to feel so, so sorry. Everyone learns an Important Lesson, and it's all thanks to Hannah and her decision to kill herself. Hannah shows everybody.

And, I'm sorry, but you never do. That's just not how it works. In many ways, Hannah is the evil twin of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but instead of living to breathe life into the dull main character, Hannah dies so that she can breathe life into the dull main character and, for all Asher's suicide-helpline advice, I couldn't help but see this as one great propeller of romantic and dangerous teenage myths.

It’s a clever concept, but it’s fundamentally illogical. Each of the characters have to send it from one ‘reason’ to another; at the end of the book, Clay passes Hannah’s tapes along to the next ‘reason’ on her list. Hannah herself raises the fact that she’s sending it between some people who are guilty of a lesser role – e.g. (view spoiler)[when dealing with a guy who raped one of her ex-friends, she sends it to a guy who enabled the rape, rather than the rapist himself. (hide spoiler)] That sounds pretty logical, no? But there’s a couple of huge things ‘wrong’ in the context of the story, although some of them probably reflect more badly on me than they do on the story:

1) Not all of the tape-receivers are guilty of ‘crimes’ of the same magnitude. In fact, sometimes, there is quite a divide between some of them, e.g. we have (view spoiler)[a guy who enabled a rape and a peeping tom (hide spoiler)] against a guy who once grabbed Hannah’s ass and one (I think?) who was a friend that she grew away from. Hannah’s logic is that the listeners will keep passing along because of their guilt, and they will not reveal the others’ secrets because they’re culpable, too. But honestly? If I were in the position of one of the guys who grabbed Hannah’s ass, I’d risk people finding out about that in order to spill on the (view spoiler)[rapist (hide spoiler)]. There was a large, large gulf between the minor and the horrible.

2) Despite the fact that Hannah said she picked on the lesser offenders so they’d pass the tape along, I still don’t understand why some of them would. Guilt? Maybe. But, for the love of GOD, Justin (view spoiler)[enabled. a. rape. (hide spoiler)] Not only is that a crime, it’s also – if I have my society-sense right – one of the worst you can commit. It’s entirely possible that (view spoiler)[Jessica (hide spoiler)] could bring charges against him after that, since (view spoiler)[Clay had seen her drunk and there had been a bona fide witness in Hannah. (hide spoiler)] I understand why it wouldn’t get so far, but…really? Mud sticks. There are probably still people in the world who would think ‘I’m not convinced’ if there was watertight evidence showing that a man was (view spoiler)[innocent of rape (hide spoiler)]. A lot of the characters - (view spoiler)[such as Jenny, the peeping tom or Justin (hide spoiler)] would be taking one hell of a chance if they chose to send it along.

Hannah is a horrible character. I mean this in two ways. One is that she’s an evil little bitch who I’d really like to punch in the face if she wasn’t dead. Second is that, the way Asher writes her, she’s NOT AT ALL plausible. (At least, not to me.)

First, let me explain why she’s a horrible little bitch.

She’s hiding in a closet when (view spoiler)[an ex-friend of hers gets raped. (hide spoiler)] She does absolutely nothing to intervene. She sees it all and does nothing. Fair enough, she’s too drunk/scared to intervene while it’s actually happening. I can see that. That makes perfect sense to me. It doesn’t necessarily make her a vile person. Would it have been better if she had intervened? Well, sure, but we’re all human. I think we can all understand, to a greater or lesser degree, while she would fear for herself or just not be a fit state to stop it. (Still, she could have called the cops when it was over or something. That’s not really my issue here, though. I have no issue with protagonists who do bad things. I find them really fascinating. I just have an issue with how this was handled.)

However, Asher does not make ANYTHING of Hannah’s guilt. To me, the last thing you should feel when you’re reading about a suicide is “my God, why is this book so WAH WAH POOR LITTLE ME?” I can’t imagine anything worse than feeling suicidal. But Hannah never gives any indication of guilt or even SYMPATHY towards poor Jessica. All she does is whine on and on about HERSELF, how it affected HER, and yet nothing about how it affected Jessica or even how bad she feels for what she let happen to Jessica.

Furthermore, Hannah then proceeds to SEND THE TAPE TO JESSICA. And denounces her throughout as one of her ‘thirteen reasons why’: thirteen people who caused her suicide. So, let’s recap. (view spoiler)[Hannah and Jessica used to be friends, but aren’t anymore for totally pathetic reasons. Hannah watches Jessica get raped and does nothing. Jessica’s rapist is the friend of the boy she (Jessica) liked. The boy she really liked openly permits it to happen, knows what would happen and makes no move to stop it. In short: Jessica is raped, while her friend and crush watch and do nothing. (hide spoiler)]

How does Hannah handle this? Well, obviously, she tops herself. (Because, you really must understand, HANNAH has been hit hardest by all of this.) Except that, before her death, Hannah makes a tape which she sends around fourteen people (view spoiler)[(including Tony, who is not one of her ‘reasons’ and also the one very likeable character.) (hide spoiler)] On this tape, Hannah repeatedly calls Jessica out as one of the reasons why she killed herself and blames Jessica for bad things that happened to her – except that what happened between Jessica and Hannah to end their friendship was so pathetic that I don’t even remember what it was.

If Jessica hasn’t switched off the tape – and, frankly, I’m surprised she didn’t smash it – by that point, Hannah then went to great pains to (view spoiler)[describe Jessica’s rape, which it’s entirely possible that she (Jessica) didn’t even remember because she was barely-conscious and very drunk, and then describe in detail how she, Jessica’s ex-best friend, and Justin, Jessica’s crush, just stood there and watched. (hide spoiler)] So, even if Jessica could remember and it wasn’t all horrifying news to her, she then had to deal with the fact that her ex-best friend and crush (view spoiler)[knowingly let it happen. (hide spoiler)] And that said ex-best friend killed herself. And views Jessica as being responsible.

And, oh yeah, chose to tell thirteen other people about the horrible things that happened.

As if it was really Hannah’s business.

So, yes, I hated Hannah. But I hated her most of all because of her unending slamming of Jessica.

But, worst of all? We’re obviously supposed to see Hannah as the victim in all of this.

Granted, Clay makes a passing reference to ‘and then Hannah hit [Jessica] with the tapes.’ Brief moral condemnation, check! But, really, at the end of the novel, Hannah is supposed to be the book’s victim. She’s its resounding tragedy. Not Jessica – y’know, the poor (view spoiler)[rape victim, who was raped by her crush’s friend while being watched by the crush and her ex-best friend (hide spoiler)] and now fourteen other people know every detail and she knows they know and they know she knows they know. And she might not have been able to remember any of it in the first place!
Excuse me while I go throw up.

Sorry for all my outraged repetition up there. Just didn’t feel that I’d quite hammered the point home.

Unlike some people, though, I didn’t inherently mind the fact that Hannah hadn’t been tormented to her suicide in some terrible way. It felt more true to life that way. This is the glorious teenage world, where one stupid comment can make you want to curl up in a ball and cry. Granted, it’s not quite glamorous, but it’s very true.

It’s Asher’s handling of this fact that butchered it for me. This brings me on to my second blanket definition of why Hannah Baker is utterly unbearable.

As I’ve mentioned several times before, Hannah’s reasons are a mixture of the severe and mundane – I suppose, realistically. But Hannah’s tone is so angry that there is virtually no variation. She seemed equally as angry at the guy who’d once pronounced that she had a ‘nice ass’ as the (view spoiler)[peeping tom or the rape-enabler (hide spoiler)]. Maybe that’s plausible for a suicidal girl – that she should feel so bitter and twisted towards everyone. Still, Hannah also has a very didactic narrative voice. I felt as though I was supposed to be Learning A Very Important Lesson, but equally important lessons from the (view spoiler)[rapist and the guy who said ‘nice ass’? (hide spoiler)] I mean, really? They’re both in the same sport, perhaps – sexual judgment/harassment – but, really, completely different leagues.

Of course, women should not be objectified. They should not be treated like meat. But what happened to Hannah was hardly bullying – it was a brief pain, something to shake off, not something that should blight her in the way it did. It doesn’t push her down further; it starts her downward spiral. That seemed all backwards to me. Plus, I know that teenagers are hardly known for their perspective, but I’d rather my ‘nice ass’ be acknowledged than be ridiculed on acne or bad hair or any kind of weight problem. Also, female students can be just as mean and judgmental – if not so more – about their peers’ appearances/bodies than men. So, please, my comment above is not a comment on a misogynistic society. P.S., it felt like Asher’s was. But really, ‘nice ass’? I’m not saying that Hannah should have taken it as a compliment – but perhaps taken it on the chin a little more?

She expresses outrage at one point because she expressed one of the signs of suicidal thoughts: she had a haircut.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am not exaggerating. Hannah Baker honest-to-God spews vitriol all over these tapes because people saw that she’d had a haircut and their reaction was, “hey, nice haircut!” instead of “ARE YOU HAVING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS?!?!”

Insulting.