1. Perspective

1. Perspective

Hey guys and welcome to my first post about how "13 Reasons Why" is narrated and which perspectives are used to tell the story.

Which perspective is used?

If you read 13 reasons Why you quickly recognize, that Clay narrates the story from his perspective. You can see this, because words like "I"  or "we" are used outside of "quotation marks". But there is a second narrator, Hannah Baker, who talks in first-perspective too. She is the voice recorded on the tapes and tells a part of the story. So Clay doesn't describe what he hears, Hannah speaks for herself without question marks and it feels like we're sitting right next to Clay hearing the recording and telling us what he experiences, whereas Hannah tells her Story.

Why did the author use this method?

A huge part of the story are Hannah's feelings and her suffering, this can only be expressed powerful, if Hannah tells the story herself, without distracting quotation marks. If the author would have told Hannah's story differently, for example with Clay telling it, it would have been less emotional and personal. In addition to this, Hannah's voice, when appearing in the book, is like a ghost, who enters the room for a moment to tell a story apart from the events in Clays storyline. Even if you look at it completely neutral and logical, it totally makes sense that the author uses two people to tell two stories that are connected. This method makes the book totally different from what I read before and it's a completely different experience. 

In my opinion, these two perspectives are very special and perfect for the story. If you like books with a lot of feelings, you should definitely read this book and enjoy the fresh style.

Till next time

Your Tim