Review: 13 Reasons Why

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the review: While apprehensively preparing to listen to his own tape, Clay Jensen asks his best friend, Tony, the pivotal question presented throughout Brain Yorkey’s 13 Reasons Why: “Did I kill Hannah Baker?” (“Tape 5, Side B”). The answer to this question is never blatantly stated in the series. However, the series regularly implies, as Alex Standall suggests, that “we all killed Hannah Baker” (Tape 2, Side A). As a show depicting the horrific consequences of slut-shaming, bullying, sexual assault, and the ineptitude of mental health awareness, 13 Reasons Why provides an interesting commentary concerning the hardships many young women face in a sexist high school environment and delineates such strains as a catalyst for adolescent suicide. Based on Jay Asher’s best-selling novel of the same name, the series begins in the wake of Hannah Baker’s completed suicide. While much of the school is struggling to comprehend the motivations behind the tragic event, Clay mysteriously receives a box of cassette tapes on his front porch that Hannah recorded prior to her death. The cassettes, each addressed to a different classmate, delineate the thirteen reasons Hannah took her own life and ultimately reveal the truth behind various rumors spread to defame her character. The show thus takes the form of a mystery, as Clay becomes an avenging detective gradually uncovering the motivations behind Hannah’s suicide while simultaneously revealing his classmates’ transgressions and finally his own.