Essay on '13 Reasons Why': Book Report

The idea of bullying, such as “not so popular” high school teens getting their head dunked in the toilet or getting humiliated online. Bullying has been stronger than ever; You have smarter kids and are known to do things worse than ever. With social media apps of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, bullies can do whatever they want whenever they want to the person they prey on. The Book 13 Reasons Why introduces this new age of bullying to a whole new level and how it affects the ones who are being affected by bullying. As reading the book teens around the world are hurt as they read about the torn cold-hearted person, Hannah Baker. Hannah is a high school junior who leaves thirteen tapes giving thirteen reasons on why she has taken her life into her own hands.

Jay Asher, the author of “13 Reasons Why”, hearted lives with his well-known character, Hannah Baker, and her ups and downs in a high school full of bullies tearing down others. Teens in today's society go through the same exact trials Hannah Baker was dealing with in the book. Many Parents wanted the book to be banned from all stores and did not want their kids reading or watching the show. People considered the things in 13 Reasons Why to be very inappropriate for their teens to read. Things like illness and depression should be the topic today and should not be ignored. As of today, suicide is the third highest death for teens ages 15-19. As a society, we need to focus more on suicide and mental illness as a whole and save lives and give them the help they need. Google searches on suicide skyrocketed to almost 20 percent in an average of 19-20 days after the show was first released. The searches lead up to 900,000 and 1.5 million more searches on the topic of suicide.

Suicide is not just a mental disorder, an important cause of suicide is mental illness, and the most common is depression. Suicide is a very sad and disturbing understandably tragic event. Suicide is in every culture and no matter what religion you have someone is still capable of taking their own life. I have learned from this book and also the tv series, that taking your own life can impact a lot of people and will cause your loved ones to go into a deep depression. Suicide is something I as a whole take very seriously and does not want to ever see my friends, family, or even people I do not communicate with get through this and neither do I want to see myself hurting myself. Depression and bullying are the main leading causes of suicide. Today teens feel alone and don’t feel loved because of everything that could be going on in their life and when it comes to bullying teens tend to seek help but feel no one will get them through it. Sometimes people always say to themselves or at least once or another time, considering committing suicide. The real tragedy is that each year almost more than half a million people in America succeed in taking their life.

As of November 11, 2018, an article states “Suicidal teenagers have claimed the controversial Netflix series 13 Reasons Why raised their risk of taking their own lives”. As an entire society, teens got attached to both tv series and books and decided to risk their lives because they felt as if it was the right thing to do in order to be “free”. Jay Asher said his book was inspired by one of his close relatives who attempted to commit suicide at the same age as Hannah Baker. The “13 Reasons Why” era is and can be a red flag in our society and can be deeper than ever. “Where there is no vision the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he” (Proverbs 29:18). For many teens and adults the lack of vision has had life and death consequences. Suicide prevention is always a good thing and if someone needs help they should try and reach out to “The National Suicide Prevention” or “Crisis Text Line” for those that are in need. More than 45,000 people in the United States ended their lives in the year of 2016 due to multiple reasons.

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Now let us talk a little about bullying. What is bullying exactly? Bullying in today’s society can go from taking an infant’s candy to thriving a person to wanting to end their life. Bullying can go into a pattern of harming and humiliating teens, specifically the ones who seem weaker than others. Between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 students in the United States report themselves being bullied at school. Bullying is not just a walk in the park. It never was. It is a deliberate and repeated attempt to cause harm to others of less power to take a stand for themselves. Bullies can 100% get their actions from home. Everything starts from home. For example; parents arguing, being physically abused, sexually assaulted, and mentally abused. Bullies are made, not naturally born people who come to terrorize innocent people. Students in middle school leading up to high school, have or had been experiencing bullying.

Studies have shown that bullies run behind prosocial behavior and do not understand other human emotions. Bullying comes in many forms like cyberbullying and adult bullying. Just to name a few. If we, as a society, do not do anything about how we can stop this, then another victim could end up like Hannah Baker. Bullies seek attention so they can feel “alive” as they say. They are ordered to hurt someone else’s feelings and take their anger out on them. In the book and the tv show, Hannah Baker wasn’t just bullied. She was betrayed and humiliated by her closest friends. All of them had their backs turned on her and did nothing but watch as she was being torn down by others. The others were her secondary closest friends. She started to seek help and give signs that she was in need of help but no one noticed not even her parents. The day she decided to go get help, she visited her counselor. He betrayed her as well. He made her feel as if she was the suspect and the others were victims. She couldn't take any more of the lying, betrayal, and humiliation. She went home, ran her a bath, picked up a razor blade, and slit both of her wrists lying there helpless. If no one does anything about anything this will be a much more cold and dark world we all live in.

As we know, bullying is a very depressing thing and a hard topic that is important to talk about. Don’t be the person that can and will make someone feel terrible and insecure about themselves. As for being a friend of someone that was bullied, it is not a game and shouldn’t be played at all. We need to prevent it as a community. Schools also need to take a big role in stopping bullying. It would make a big difference. You can start by doing anti-bullying rallies and hosting them at local schools and their story on how they were bullied, being a parent of a bully, or parents of a child being bullied. “You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything. . . affects everything.” -Jay Asher.

At the end of the day “13 Reasons Why” is a life-learned lesson. Those individuals treated Hannah like she didn’t have a life of her own. What if their roles were reversed? Would they feel the same if they were treated the same? This is the best time to prevent suicide and bullying. Parents want to reduce and minimize the harm it causes teens. Some families take a role in bullying prevention and gaining support and disclosing bullying.