My 11-year old found Thirteen Reasons Why in his cousins’ room. He was curious and read it. The curiosity was highlighted by the mystery why he can’t watch it on Netflix (I set the Netflix to Kids profile because they are always accessing it). When my son reads, he reads like there’s no tomorrow. So, he finished the book in 1 day.

And he kept on talking about it to me.

I was glad he did because it made me read the book.

But it got me worried he read it before I got the chance to emotionally process it first.

As I turn the pages of the book, my anxiety over how and what my son’s thoughts were while reading grew. How did he react to each character? How was his thought processes going while the involvement of each character unfolded? Did he blame them, too? Did he look at each character as bad? Did he end up unquestioningly sympathetic to Hannah?

I read the book from a mother’s perspective, naturally! But I didn’t read it from Hannah’s Mom’s perspective. I read it as a Mom of Clay and Jessica, even Zach’s.

Jessica’s story was the most sensitive. She was raped by Bryce. What else could be more personal and traumatic than being raped? Hannah divulged in her tape recording the rape committed by Bryce. She witnessed it and was traumatized by it but it wasn’t her story to tell. This choice to tell was unceremoniously grabbed from Jessica through Hannah’s suicide recording. Jessica was traumatically scarred for life not once, but twice! Others may see Hannah’s revelation about Jessica’s rape as helping her to stand up for herself. Bryce’s act was criminal and there’s no way to put it less shockingly. But being robbed of a choice to tell her story wasn’t empowering at all. Not at all. In both cases, she wasn’t even given the chance to fight back the way she deemed it right for herself. Individually, we have different coping mechanisms.

Zach, the seemingly harmless boy who stole encouraging and positive notes for Hannah, was included in the “list of people to blame”. From Hannah’s mind, Zach was being vindictive. Was he? Was Hannah right in how she interpreted Zach’s actions? Being made accountable for one’s suicide is too grave to handle for a boy who stole encouraging notes. I am not condoning his actions. But for a non-suicidal, a confrontation would have been the end of it. Granted, Zach should have been more sensitive. But in the book, the burden of guilt was being thrown on Zach because he failed to respond to Hannah’s vague call for understanding. But Zach is also a teenager who is going through his own teenage angst.

And Clay Jensen!

Hannah herself, in the tape, acknowledged that Clay is in the list not because he did something bad to her the way others did but just because she, and apparently all the other kids, see him as the good boy, almost perfect. But she was intrigued to discover his flaws. In her words,

“Clay, your name does not belong on this list. But you need to be here if I’m going to tell my story. If I’m going to explain why I did what I did. Because you aren’t every other guy. You’re different. You’re good and kind and decent. And I didn’t deserve to be with someone like you.”

Clay was made to feel guilty about Hannah’s suicide. Why? This was an unnecessary burden placed on a young man. No, you can’t make Hannah’s fight his fight to take. Just because he didn’t do anything about his infatuation with Hannah doesn’t mean he should carry this burden. Not all boys (or girls) make a move when they like someone. Some choose to not do anything because they know it isn’t the right thing to do at that particular time. It’s called wisdom.

As a mom, I see Clay as a responsible young man who has discipline and self-control. He stays out of trouble and doesn’t expose himself to situations that can possibly bring trouble, particularly parties that teenagers frequent. He was a very self-aware young man who knows his chances of being valedictorian could be easily ruined by any irresponsible incident. He controlled himself when it comes to his feelings for Hannah because of her reputation. As a mom, I rejoice! Clay is very responsible and in control.

The book is very brave to tackle teenage suicide. But hey, you can’t put the blame on people around you. Especially not on young people who are living their youth the way we and the others before us lived our youth.

Yes, teenagers need to be sensitive and perceptive of others. But being sensitive and perceptive doesn’t mean babysitting fragile egos. This is a strong statement, I know. But we can teach children and teenagers to be sensitive and perceptive without strongly imposing this guilt of being responsible for someone’s death.

Adults are on a different plane. Yes, we can blame ourselves for being insensitive and for not caring enough to spend time and exert effort. We, especially the parents among us, have a higher responsibility to build our children’s character. 

But please, let us spare the teenagers from the blame. Especially those who are trying to live their lives wisely.

(This post is based solely on the book. This post cannot be read in the context of the Netflix series.)

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