When books are developed into movies and TV shows, it is often said that the book is better than the movie or show, but “13 Reasons Why” is an exception.

The latest series from Netflix tells the story of Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford, “Daughter”), a teenager who ends her life and leaves behind a series of cassette tapes to the people she blames for her suicide.

The 13 tapes are passed down from each person Hannah blames and falls into the hands of Clay Jensen (Dylan Minnette, “Don’t Breathe”), a fellow classmate and nice guy who always had a crush on her. She leaves instructions that the box is to be passed down from one person to another and, for some reason if the next person does not listen to the tapes, a trusted individual would release the tapes to the media.

The series successfully deals with heavy topics for high school students, including revenge porn, drunk driving, bullying, broken friendships and suicide, all while creating a beautiful story in 13 episodes.

Among those who received the tapes are the boy who told the entire school Hannah was a slut after they kissed once, the boy who reduced her to “best ass” in school, the girl who believed the rumors and blamed Hannah when her boyfriend dumped her and the boy who turns out to be a rapist.

Brian Yorkey, the creator of the series, preserve the structure and pacing of the book, while leaving viewers with an addictive, exceptional story.

The show alludes to Clay being one of the last people to get the tapes and the audience gets the pleasure of following him around town while listening to the traumatic events in Hannah’s life.

This tragic, yet beautiful, series is based off of Jay Asher’s best-selling novel published in 2007. The 13-hour series was released on March 31 and revolves around the question: What did Clay do to get on the tapes?

Although the series was written well, audiences may question the casting of the main character.

Langford plays Hannah Baker, a junior in high school. Shelooks like she could be a junior in college. While she seems to have the mental capacity of a junior in high school, she just looks too old.

Minnette plays Clay Jensen particularly well. He wears his heart on his sleeve, allowing the audience to dive into what would be a beautifully captivating shift between the past, as seen by Hannah, and the present, experienced by Clay.

“13 Reasons Why” is broken up into 13 episodes, but could have been done in less. By stretching out 13 episodes, it began to get repetitive. The cliff hanger on each episode ended up being the same: What did Clay do wrong? This not only got repetitive, but it makes no sense that Clay waited so long to listen to all of the tapes. He made no progress from interrogating each character after he got to their tape.

After each tape, Clay tries to confront other characters, arguing with them and questioning them, trying to find out the entire story. If Clay just sat down for a few hours and listened to the tapes instead of asking questions, he would know everything much sooner. As the series goes on, the audience finds out that most of the characters listened to the tapes in a day or less. 

Clay finally gives himself time to listen to each tape, arguably to mentally and emotionally prepare himself. It is almost as if he does not want to know what he did.

Although it seemed to drag on longer than it should, the captivating story of Hannah Baker’s traumatic life was exceptional nevertheless.