Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, is a young adult fiction about a girl, Hannah Baker, who makes a fatal decision that affects everyone in the book and anyone who reads her story. A common theme throughout this story is that everyone is responsible for his or her own actions. This is shown, though the fact that Hannah never denies that is was ultimately her own decision to end her life. The setting of this story is a petite town in California. This small town consists of small diners, a park, a coffee shop, a movie theater, and a school. In a small town. everyone knows everyone's business, therefore making rumors extremely easy to spread. This makes it strenuous for Hannah when certain things happen to her involving people from her …show more content…
Clay is a normal guy that everyone likes, and he gets along with just about anybody. He worked at a movie theatre with Hannah over the summer, but they never had a real conversation for a long while. They were just acquaintances. The story starts off with Clay coming home from school to find an unusual package on his front doorstep. He brings it inside and opens it to find cassette tapes recorded by Hannah. Each tape is labeled with a number and a letter. By listening to these tapes he learns the reasons why Hannah made her decision. The first tape opens with her voice softly uttering, “I am about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended.” Then she takes a long-drawn-out breath, “If you are listening to these tapes, you are one of the reasons why (7 Asher).” Clay spends his night binging these tapes and hearing the names of other students he knows on the tapes. He is slowly becoming more disappointed in other people for what they did to Hannah. While listening to these tapes he anxiously awaits to hear his name be mentioned. He wants to know why he was one of the reasons Hannah ended her life. Doing this causes him tremendous pain, because he feels as if he could have stopped her, or noticed signs of her wanting to hurt