This is my second part of the reflection, about 13 reasons why. I'm going to discuss the teenagers' suicide problem in this log. Also, I want to point out the issues of peer bullying.
Book Intro
Hannah Baker is a high school student who suicided because of being bullied in the school. More specifically, Hannah's classmates spread rumors about her, laughed at her, excluded her from the class, what's worse, she was once raped. Hannah used 7 tapes to record the 13 reasons why she ended her life. There will be 13 people in the recording. Hannah explained about what role that person plays in her death.
Reflection
In the previous log, I talked about some features of the book and the importance of helping. This time, I'd like to focus on the problem of teenage suicide, which is the biggest issue in this book. In the novel, Hannah is bullied by her classmates, so she chooses to kill herself. And I think this is also a serious problem that usually happens in real life. We see many news reports that there are students who jumped off a building. This may be because their peers isolate them or are under a lot of pressure. Actually, as a teenager, we cared about our peers very much, even sometimes more than our family. At this young age, our mentalities are not mature enough. One word or one action can have a big influence on our minds. That's why so many unfortunate things happened. People usually say that those who commit suicide are very selfish or don't cherish their lives. They don't think about their family or people who still love them. However, in my opinion, if I were Hannah, I won't care about other people. I know that's selfish, but I was painful and suffering. I will choose to end my life and release myself rather than live tragically. We don't know how desperate they were when most people decided to die. We can't keep blaming suicide people, and we should try to think from their perspective. We meet many setbacks and failures in our life. If we can turn them into motivation and continue life, that will be better.
This is the #1 NEW YORK TIMES and international bestseller; I highly recommend this book to teenagers. Maybe after reading this novel, there will be some changes or inspirations. I read the comments on my last blog post, many classmates have read 13 reasons why before. This is really a popular novel! I will try to watch the NETFLIX series when I have spare time. I hope that the series will make me feel something different from the book.
Dear Mia, this is Hazel! 13 reasons why is definitely one of the most famous English novel in recent years since I have a lot of friends all once read it and recommend it to me just like you. I think why teenage suicide is getting more serious is because the invasion of Internet. When I was in elementary school, honestly no one knew about "bullying" before this word popped up in every poster in our school's bullet in board. So once we acknowledged that was wrong; we stopped doing it and banned others to do so. However, internet enabled bullying continuing after school. Moreover, kids are often too afraid to ask for help, then tragedies happen. Hope that every kids can have a safe and joyful childhood, no matter in what age.
ReplyDeleteI agree with that we shouldn't judge a person who commit suicide. We would never know what they have undergone, which is selfish as well. I consider this one of the "weakness" of human beings.
ReplyDeleteHello, Mia. I have to say that I sometimes doubt the meaning of the existence of humans. I don't see the point of working day and night, with pressure and anxiety, just to survive. And I thought about if I just end my life what difference there will be to the whole world: none. But what keeps me from committing suicide is my family (of course I'm living a happy life and don't really want to kill myself). I don't want my family to cry and be sad because of me. And maybe it's just I "haven't" made enough impact yet so I don't feel my significance in the world. One day when I become a figure the size of Elon Musk, my death will definitely be a huge wave on this planet.
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