Por Treze Razões/Thirteen Reasons Why (Jay Asher)

EN First of all, the subject of this book makes me quite sensitive. Psychological and mental illnesses cannot be treated lightly, let alone ignored. I decided not to comment on the first season of the series, which is an adaptation of the book, because we have some very significant differences, which makes me prefer the book more.

Clay Jensen is a young man who finds himself in possession of some tapes recorded by Hannah Baker. Clay didn't want to hear those tapes after the morbid outcome of Hannah's death. However, she warns him that his name is also part of it along with the names of other people responsible for her death. All the events throughout the tapes force Clay to visit important points in the city which helps to unfold Hannah's story and to meet in an intimate way people who had some sort of relationship with her, and who in a way, caused her some harm. Hannah tried to hold these people accountable for the negative snowball she found herself living in and which tragically led to her death.

The book is good and very easy to read and seeks to bring awareness to its readers on strong topics such as suicide, sexual assault, verbal and physical violence, bullying and others. Unfortunately, these acts are still very common in our society. Many of them are not reported or even condemned, others are covered up, and the truth is that they can even be trivialized, which causes me a lot of discomfort. Regarding this book, I feel that they embellished the idea of suicide a little, and in my opinion, it should be treated with more assertiveness and less lightness.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, I chose to interpret the message positively, almost as an alert to our actions. Because if we think about it, all actions imply a reaction. And if that action involves others, we must think about whether the reaction we are going to get is good or bad and what can be triggered from that.

But I want to leave here a final question to which I still do not know how to answer. Can committing suicide be considered a selfish act? Yes? No? One thing I believe piously. Whoever does it, has to be in atrocious suffering and has to have the mind so disconnected from the world that the only thing missing is turning off the body.

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