Warning: This article contains suicide and self-harm, which may be distressing to some readers.
In 2017, I was struggling. I was pining for someone I had fallen in love with during the new year, and I had decided to defer university for six months while fighting to see my daughter.
I didn’t know what I was doing with my life. It was only two years before that everything was going well. Now, I felt like I was holding on.
One night, after picking up a PlayStation 4, I decided to subscribe to Netflix. I scrolled through the TV shows and movies on there (this was before Disney+, so the Marvel movies were still there), and I came across a show everyone I worked with had been talking about: 13 Reasons Why.
I was curious about this show; I hadn’t only heard about it from people at work, I had also read about it. The show was controversial; many people thought it glamourised suicide, and there was THAT graphic bathtub scene.
Through all the research I did about the show, I found out it was adapted from a book. I enjoy reading, and I thought this was a perfect chance to read the book before watching the show.
I bought the book, and I couldn’t put it down. I loved every second of reading it. It had actually been a long time since I had enjoyed a book. I fell in love with both Clay and Hannah, and even though there wasn’t going to be a (spoilers) happy ending for the pair, I would have enjoyed seeing them as a couple, and that was just from reading the book.
I finally started watching the show. While there are some noticeable differences from the book (there always are), I enjoyed how the story came to life on the small screen. One major difference is the way Hannah takes her life. And of course, there were characters that I had utter disdain for in the book who were made worse by the way they were portrayed in the show.
As I approached the final episodes, I already knew what was ahead and decided to stop. Given how I was feeling at the time, I felt like I needed to be in the right headspace to watch them, especially if that scene was as graphic as I had read about. I was right to do so because it is one of the most graphic and intense scenes I have watched.
After finishing the show, I didn’t think about whether they would do a season two. I actually thought one season was enough. In my eyes, they did the book justice. But in TV or streaming land, you need to milk each intellectual property for more. On the plus side, it gives a lot of talented writers a job.
I honestly don’t see the problem in continuing the story. I know it got negative reviews along the way; it also has a 35 per cent critics rating and a 56 per cent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But for me, the story in season one is perfect the way it is.
