Theme of the Book

One of the main themes of Thirteen Reasons Why is that even though you may not realize it, the little things that you say or do to someone can have a huge impact on them.  People do have an impact on the lives of others. Hannah Baker never denies it was her choice to end her life, but there were many times when someone could have acted differently that may have changed her decision. Her suicide was brought on by a chain of events and incidents that many people caused. Even though most of the events were unrelated to each other, Hannah had a lot of problems going on in her life, and the little actions of others kept on adding to her pain. Not only was Hannah new to the area and school, but her parents were caught up in issues with their business, and she could not open up to them. In the novel, most of the characters did not think about their actions before they did them. They should have thought out their behaviors and words both for their sake and Hannah's, but instead they were not sensitive, which resulted in many problems. This is related to another major theme, which is that an action or statement may not affect someone else at the moment, but it may affect their life as a whole in the long run. Many harsh and hurtful events took place in the novel. People caused these incidents not realizing that in the end, it could affect Hannah’s life to such a point that she would kill herself.