13 Reasons Why by Marjorie

13 Reasons Why by Marjorie - February 2015 Scholarship Essay

It is my belief that students should be required to read more. Not just to fill out a study guide, but actual books. Growing up I was always ahead of the reading curve. At the age of about nine (about 4th grade) I was told that I was reading at about an 8th grade level. My love for books and reading has followed me my whole life. Some of my favorite presents to receive are books and when I got my first job, I spent part of my first paycheck buying books.

One year for Christmas, I received the book 13 Reasons Why. My cousin had picked it out for me because he had read it and thought it was something that I would really enjoy. He had picked it out for me because one of the main characters reminded him of me and the struggles I was having in my life at the time. As soon as I got the chance, I opened the book up and started reading. It was a really good book. More importantly though, it had a really good message.

The book is written from the perspective of a boy who recently had a girl from his school commit suicide. One day, he finds a package on his door and inside it has 13 cassette tapes and a note. The note explains that if you got the box, you were a reason why she had killed herself, and you had to listen to all of them to find out. It was her way of explaining herself and telling her story. Yet at the same time, it was showing the people who had harmed her that actions speak louder than words.

The boy who listens to the tapes hadn't actually done anything to harm her. He was on there because she wanted him to know how she felt about him, and I guess she wanted to share her story with him.

While the book covers some controversial material, it shares an amazing message. Little actions go a long way in how people perceive their own lives. This girl was abused, bullied, taunted, and multiple other things, causing her to take her own life. Yet so often in our everyday lives, these things happen and nobody even says anything.

I personally have been through it all. On a list of struggles that a person who decided to commit suicide has been through, I would have more of them checked than not. The book doesn't teach the "It gets better" concept. Because sometimes it doesn't. Instead, it teachs people to pay attention to their actions, their words, their day to day lives, to help in preventing more people to take their own lives.

I believe that 13 Reasons Why should be MANDATORY for all kids before they leave high school. It covers things that actually happen to people in todays day and age, instead of telling stories about the past. It brings to the forefront actual issues that people face every single day, yet everybody wants to push in the back and forge they exist. If it was a required reading, it would open the eyes of both teachers and students, and if those eyes were opened, maybe their would be less hopelessness in the world.