The book never develops its characters beyond giving them each a name and a single trait (Alex: objectifying Courtney: two-faced), but the TV show turns them all into genuine three-dimensional people. The TV show moves a little more slowly than the book, and that’s mostly a good thing.

Even when not all that much is happening, everything feels more ominous because the text is rapidly switching points of view and timelines. The juxtaposition of the two stories keeps the tension high, and it’s responsible for most of the book’s relentless momentum. Clay’s stories and Hannah’s run parallel to one another: We follow Clay as he bikes frantically through town, seeking out the places Hannah describes as he listens to her tapes through his headphones. Each person is required to listen to the whole set and then pass the tapes along to the next person on the list, like a demented chain letter: the boy who told the entire school she was a slut after they kissed once the boy who reduced her to the best ass in school the girl who believed the rumors and blamed Hannah when her boyfriend dumped her - and, eventually and horrifyingly, the boy who turns out to be a rapist.īoth the book and TV show begin when the tapes reach Clay Jensen ( Dylan Minnette), a boy who quietly nursed a crush on Hannah when she was alive and can’t imagine what he might have done that would drive her to suicide. Before she died, she made a set of cassette tapes detailing the 13 reasons for her suicide, and arranged for them to be sent to the 13 people she blames for her death. Hannah Baker ( Katherine Langford), a 17-year-old high school junior, has killed herself.

Netflix keeps the book’s premise and tension but expands the charactersĪnd the premise of 13 Reasons Why is indeed grim. What’s left is an addictive, immersive show that comes with the standard Netflix flaws - the story gets bloated halfway through the 13-episode season, which tends to happen with shows built for binge-watching - but also manages its grim material with elegance and nuance.

Showrunner Brian Yorkey, who won a Pulitzer in 2010 for his musical Next to Normal, has preserved Asher’s high-concept structure and his thriller-like pacing, but he’s managed to discard most of the cheap and lazy choices that bogged down the book. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark

13 reasons why 2 new replacement