Week 7 Prompt

As someone with severe depression and anxiety, I am a major advocate for mental health, and I really related to and got a strong message from the book 13 Reasons Why. I believe it is a powerful text that shows us just how our words and actions affect the people around us. When the Netflix show based on the book came out there was a lot of backlash saying the book was pro-suicide. We defend books we love like we do close friends or family because that is what they become to us. I had to defend one of my favorite books to literally everyone who hadn’t read it based on what was being said about the show. I can say I have never watched the Netflix series, but the book tells a powerful story that everyone has an impact on our lives good or bad. I feel the book shows a valid side to depression that sometimes you can’t recover, it reinforced for me the belief that a person did not kill themselves but was killed by depression. Hannah’s depression was brought on by bullying, so when I read the article this week about how the author was accused of harassment, I was slightly shocked. I felt betrayed by a man I had never met and likely never will. Yet I felt like he owed to me to be the kind of person I expected because of a book he wrote, and I liked it.

 We are all human and make mistakes, I have never met, nor do I ever expect to meet, the perfect person. We all say things we regret and don’t mean. The same article went on to prove another valid point though to me, one person does not make the voice of a movement. Another book I love Furiously Happy is about depression and is more of a memoir, but it too shows the many sides of depression. 13 Reasons Why takes an extreme stance that is not found in Furiously Happy. I think both books are part of healthy dialogue on depression and suicide.

Books and authors take on new meaning to us as readers when the work is near to us for whatever reason. It makes it hard to like something when you know the creator did or stood for something you are against. I don’t agree with Jay Asher’s actions and it has caused a struggle in me to justify still liking his work after learning this about him. One thing I do know is I can’t change how that book makes me feel and what it has done for me but that doesn’t mean the author gets a pass. 

Underwood, Alexia. (2018) The #metoo Movement Hit the Literary World Hard This Week. It's Not the First Time. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2018/5/10/17323642/metoo-junot-diaz-allegations-nobel-literature-prize