Thirteen Reasons Why - Book vs. TV show

Hey!

I must admit, this actually
beats the book cover.

So as you may know, I read Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher a month back, and a week ago or so, I finished watching the Netflix show that has gotten very popular since it was made. Why? I wish I knew. It really wasn't too good. If you're super into watching it in the future, some of this could be considered a spoiler, but I won't spoil anything too major (in my opinion at least).

In short, Thirteen Reasons Why is a story in which Hannah Baker makes thirteen tapes on the thirteen reasons (and people) which drove her to kill herself. The main character, Clay Jensen, had a crush on Hannah, and receives these tapes one day, meaning he's one of the reasons.

In the book, it goes like this:
*Clay receives tapes*
*Clay listens to the tapes*
*Clay sends the tapes to the next person*

It's nice and simple. The book is under 350 fairly tightly paced pages and takes place over one night, during which Clay has minimum interaction with other people and listens to Hannah's story with little to no distractions.

That's not what happens in the TV show. And that's not a surprise or anything - it's 13 episodes long, with each episode over 50 minutes. I'm sure just adapting the book would amount to under half of that. And while I get that making thirteen episodes each named in the style of Tape 1 Side A and so on is all cute and quirky, it's just so drawn out. I couldn't count how many times I felt like punching the TV because Clay kept having conversations and asking people questions that would have all been solved if he just listened to the tapes. This made the show incredibly, incredibly tedious for me to watch

The TV show also includes all these extra plot lines (that no one asked for):

• Hannah's parents are suing the school
• Clay's mum is defending the school but feels bad about it and such drama
• Everyone on the tapes has a vendetta against Clay
• Clay is super rude to Hannah during crucial moments, why would they even add that into this?
• Jessica doesn't remember what happened and can Hannah be trusted or no?!
• Tyler is acting super weird and stuff what in the world is he collecting [spoiler] for?!
• Clay is hallucinating all the time because suspense! Is anything real anymore?!
• Clay wants revenge! and justice! and makes tape number 14 because he's so badass or whatever
• Explicit suicide/rape/sex scenes because surely that's what this story needed
• Let's end it in a couple of cliffhangers just to make sure we can milk more money from it!

All of the aforementioned things just add into the convoluted feel of the show. It's less Hannah's story and more the story of the consequences, which really, really takes it away from the original idea of a guy who has a crush on a girl hearing why she decided to kill herself and gaining closure through getting to know her better, even if it's too late for her. And in the book, the ending (which I obviously won't spoil) goes to show that Clay actually seems to grow from this experience in his own way. It was empowering. This was not.

Naturally, the explicit suicide and rape scenes are just the worst thing to happen to TV perhaps ever. I understand how they're shocking and make you feel strong emotions, but on the flip side of the coin it's what it says on the tin - making these very sensitive subjects entertainment. In the book, it was enough to say 'swallowed a bottle of pills' and 'he touched her', but the show just had to make these things into shocking scenes. And of course, they didn't let Hannah die but just swallowing some pills (that wouldn't be dramatic enough, would it?). Nah, it's way bloodier than that.

Tony is the hero this show doesn't deserve at all

If I had to name two good (or decent) things about this show, they would be Tony and Alex. Alex didn't come across as too likeable in the book but he's decent here, while Tony is the only pure thing in this show that just doesn't deserve him. Seriously, he was pretty much the only thing making it worth watching sometimes. He had a really nice personality and I would've liked this show so much more if Clay had just forgotten about Hannah and his stupid vendetta and dated this perfect creampuff instead. Seriously.

Obviously no one should think that Thirteen Reasons Why is a good idea or that Hannah Baker is a role model of any sort. Online discussion is largely focused on whether the show is portraying suicide and a suicide note as a good way to ultimately 'one-up' bullies or if the show makes suicide seem less final than it actually is. I won't go into more discussion one whether the show portrays these things in the wrong light, but maybe if you're less invested than I am in this mess, you would like to know. I'm just contrasting these two things and letting you make your own decisions based on that.

In short, I would not recommend the TV show. The book, yes, so long as you're not suicidal or anything, but definitely not the show. It's drawn out and annoying and most of the things that happen have nothing to do with what the book is about - why Hannah Baker killed herself.

Season two is coming whether anyone wants it or not. My best guess is that each episode will have Clay (under a lame super hero name like The Helmet Boy or something) attack each bully in turn with Tony as his sidekick. No but really, I don't know how one continues a story like this anymore, and I wish they didn't need to. But I suppose one always makes whatever makes money.

Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher

'I'm listening to someone give up. Someone I knew, someone I liked. I'm listening. But still, I'm too late.'

This cover put me off this book for
a while because I thought it looked
a little childish and I expected the
same from the story itself.

Heyo!

As you might know, I was supposed to be studying reading other stuff, but the hype is high and I had bought this earlier... So I thought I'd read a bit of it. And I ended up reading all of it over three days of mostly doing other things. It was very gripping, one could say.

The premise of this book is this: High school student Clay Jensen receives a package of tapes, and finds out they were a suicide note of such by his crush, Hannah Baker, who committed suicide two weeks prior. These tapes tell the story of the thirteen reasons and thirteen people who drove her to kill herself, and Clay received them because he's one of them. (The notes in the book tell me this is a pun on the Baker's Dozen, which I found quite funny)

The style works quite well; Hannah's voice on the tapes is in italics, Clay's thoughts in normal text. It's all woven quite tightly together, and it works. Clay follows in Hannah's footprints along the places she talks about, offering some of his knowledge to fill in the gaps. I think this might also work quite well as an audio book, provided whoever read Hannah's parts was very good at what she does.

In a way, this book is a horrible read. All of the horrible things that have happened to Hannah, I've heard them all before. These things happen to people, because we are careless and can never think enough about the consequences of our actions and words on others. In its heart, Hannah made these tapes not because she blames these people, but because she wants them to know how even smaller actions can destroy you. She even acknowledges that this decision was ultimately hers and hers alone, even if the actions of others made her think of it.

I didn't think I would like this since I don't really agree with suicide as an option, but I thought the situation was handled quite delicately here. It didn't preach or claim to tell anyone else's story. Regardless, I would never recommend this to anyone who's had problems with depression or suicidal thoughts or anything. This isn't a helpful book in that way. What I didn't like about this book was that some story points didn't really come across that clearly, and I would have wanted to know more.

The ending, I thought, was quite clever and nice. I really liked that. I also liked how all the different stories were quite different. I also liked Clay, even though he was a bit flat. Like Nick in The Great Gatsby, he was an onlooker of sorts, and everything happened around him, not necessarily to him. That's all cool though. This story isn't about Clay, but about Hannah.

Through the tapes, the book handles with many difficult subjects for teenagers, like drinking, relationships, depression, bullying... It was sobering in how real it felt - I didn't leave that time all that long ago, after all.

All in all, I'd give this a 3.5/5, rounded up. It was an easy read in a way, and succeeded in what it set out to do.

For the Helmet 2017 reading challenge I put this in category 19: A "one day story" book! (This does have like a three page epilogue from a different day but I thought it's still good enough... If I read a better one this year, I might change that!)

I think I'll check out at least the first episode of the Netflix original show based on this and let you know my thoughts later under this post. I'm very curious.

Thoughts on the TV show (Edit from 22th April)

I admit - this thing looks pretty
cool. Better than the book cover,
anyway!

So I watched that pilot like I said I would. And while I can say that I totally would have enjoyed it had I not read the book previously (this thing heavily relies on the mystery of who did what to Hannah), it's a bit drawn out. Of course it would be, considering that in the book Clay listens to all the tapes in one night - to me this even made sense, considering he felt like he should do it as quickly as possible. In the Netflix series however, it's a 'monster of the week' type of thing, with each side of the tape - one story - given a whopping 50 minutes. If the book has 336 pages (it does, by the way. I checked!), it would be around 25 pages per tape. So you can imagine how drawn out this thing feels to me, in comparison.

There's all this added drama. From what the first episode gives me, Hannah's parents are filing a lawsuit against school (why?), everyone who has had the tapes before tries to contact Clay, and Clay has to ask people about obvious things which in the book were treated like just that - obvious. Also, Clay is some crusader vigilante who has decided to bring Hannah justice.

Also, from my brief online reading, this thing ends on some cliffhangers so they're planning a second season? Now why in the world would they do that? I thought the book ended really gracefully and a second season, well, if this was drawn out already... On the bright side, however, what's on the tapes seems to be very faithful to the book. There have been a lot of direct quotes spoken by Hannah, and I appreciate that.

Having watched this one episode and pretending like I watched the whole show, I'm starting to believe that most of the problems people have with this thing are actually added just for extra drama. That's a shame, and I find myself thinking that if you're on the fence about this, please just read the book instead. Except if you're depressed! It's not a happy story when someone's died.

Never mind all that. More importantly, why did I think Hannah was a blonde? I have real problems recreating characters in my mind from their descriptions, it seems. I just make up whatever I want instead. Welp.