Blog Review, post by Alexandra Giles on "Thirteen Reasons Why"

http://storiesarelight2000.blogspot.com/2013/10/13-reasons-why.html         

          This week I read a blog post written by Alexandra on the book "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher. It was well written and Alexandra included quotes, and her own thoughts and opinions, which she then elaborated on. This book talks about Clay Jensen when he receives tapes of reasons to why a girl from his school named Hannah Baker, committed suicide. On these tapes, Hannah explains the reasons and events that caused her to kill herself. She mentions 13 people in these tapes, who are responsible for her death, either by doing or saying something about her, or not doing something to help her.
          I read this book about a year ago, and it was really thought provoking and really made you think about, and reflect on the things you do and say. Alexandra included a lot of thinking about things that were said and things that occurred in the book. A smart thing that I think she did was quote a character in the book, and following that with her thinking. She says "This line, "…It's more than a scratch. It's a punch in the stomach and a slap in the face. It's a knife in my back because you would rather believe some made-up rumor than what you knew to be true.", represents both the arc of the story, as well as messages conveyed throughout the whole book." And she uses examples to then explain her thinking. I totally agree with this, I think that it represents so many things in the book. Especially since rumors were what initially started off many of her problems and insecurities, and caused other things to be said about her and people to judge her, before even meeting her. One of the people in her tapes, spread rumors about things that they did, which then caused other people to start judging her and spreading even more rumors. This lead to several messages being displayed in the book, which Alexandra mentioned in her blog.
          I think that the mean, and honestly terrible things that happened to Hannah just added onto each other, until it was too much for her to handle. And even though Alexandra didn't mention this, I think that Hannah had already given up hope at that point in the story. She said that her last hope would be to get the help of a teacher at her school, and she decided that if that didn't help, she would commit suicide. I think that she was setting herself up to fail at that moment though. She didn't have any hope, or faith in that anyone could help her, but I think that if she had, she may not have killed herself. I think that this relates to the fact that one bad thing, adds onto another, and gives people too many problems and mean and rude comments, and insults to have to deal with.
          I agree with Alexandra that this book has some very important lessons that the author created, and showed throughout his book. Alexandra explained and talked about several issues in the book, and some lessons that were learned. A lesson that she talked about was that your actions can affect people much more than you would think. I agree that this was a lesson continuously shown throughout the book. The author shows readers that a single rumor can make someone else's life miserable, by writing this story, in which Hannah's problems cause her to believe the rumors, and just give up, because she couldn't stand it any more. It is shown in this book that one bad thing or rumor just adds to another one, which adds to another one, until there are so many so many negative thoughts and feelings holding her back and bringing down her confidence.
          Alexandra also said that whether or not you spread or believe a rumor is your choice. This is very important, you have the power to not make someone else miserable and not make them feel bad and hate themselves. This is a great lesson for everyone to learn, because it applies to everyone, whether you realize it or not.
          This book, as well as Alexandra's blog post made me think about my own life.  The lessons in this book are learned from the mistakes of characters in the book. And what happened in this book and to these characters, makes you realize that the things you say, even if you are just talking to your friends about someone, can affect people tremendously. It makes you think about what you do and say, before you say them.
          I think that this blog post was very well-written! I really liked that a great deal of the Alexandra's blog post was based on the quotes she used. She quoted several things that were said in the book, and then reflected on them, and noticed many different things that she elaborated on. I would probably want to try to do this in my own blog posts, have a significant quote, and elaborate and explain just that one quote, to see what I can can get from just a few sentences. She started off her post with a summary that briefly describes what the book is about, while not giving away too many details. This gives the readers some background information, enough to understand the blog post, but it doesn't spoil the book for people who haven't read it.