Reasons why you should not read “13 reasons why” by Jay Ashner

The first time I read “13 reasons why”, I was 13, maybe 14, and I didn’t know anything about suicide. At that time I loved this book for showing me how the world isn’t easy for everyone. It told me that life can be hard, and can doven our spirit completely to the point where we don’t want to live anymore.

After learning about depression thanks to some of my friends who struggled with this disease themselves, I went to watch the show. I remember talking about this show with a friend who had depression herself, and she found the show gave such a wrong impression of depression. 

Indeed, the show represents a mental illness, and indeed, it brings awareness, but it doesn’t explain properly what depression is and how depression feels like. As I myself had good memories of the book, I wanted to reread it, and see if my opinion was changed. And it was.

Hannah Baker, the main character, explains her story throughout the book. And her story is a great example of how hard bullying can affect a person, and how we should always treat people kindly, but it isn’t the best representation.

It looks like Hannah is constantly blaming her “friends” and classmates for her death, and even though it is their fault, no person with depression only thinks about the ones to blame. Depression is so much more than just taking revenge on people for making you feel like shit. Nowhere in the book she tells about how she struggled to get up or do normal things, or even explains her feelings.

What should have been included, was her point of view, her own feelings, her telling about her depressive thoughts, but nowhere in the book was any of this mentioned, which makes me conclude that Jay Ashner did not do much research on depression and suicide.

Jay Ashner maybe had good intentions, but his lack of research made the book a bad and even harmful representation of the book (since some people feel like Hannah’s death is an act of revenge). Instead of reading this, it is better to read books like “the bell jar” with own-voice authors.