One day after returning home from school, Clay Jensen found a mysterious box on his doorstep. After opening the box, inside he found cassette tapes from Hannah Baker, a former classmate of his. It’s odd though, because she had committed suicide a few weeks ago. On the cassette tapes, it was Hannah talking, explaining to them that if they were on the tape, they were one of the thirteen reasons why she committed suicide.


A few weeks ago, a young girl in some of Clay Jensen’s classes had unexpectedly committed suicide. While others were mourning over her death, it didn’t really seem to disturb Clay because he barely knew her. Two weeks after her death, Clay came home to a box awaiting him on his doorstep. After opening the box, he found thirteen cassette tapes. Later, he scrambled around until he found an old cassette tape player in his garage. Shortly after listening to the first one, he found out that they were from Hannah Baker, who had committed suicide two weeks before. As he kept listening, she explained that there were thirteen tapes all together, and if you were on the tape, you were one of the thirteen reasons why she killed herself. Each tape had a specific person it was assigned to, but you had to listen to every tape before yours in order to get to your own. You also had to follow two rules: do what the tape told you and pass the box of cassette tapes to who ever was stated at the end of your tape. Clay barely ever talked to her, so he was quite confused. Odd things start happening to him that will change his life forever.