But they were wrong. There was a reason.

Every reader is different. There's no book that's inappropriate for every person, but there are people who cannot handle everything.

I tried getting my dad to buy me a beeper for my birthday,” he says, “but he thinks only doctors and drug dealers need them.

The main thing I wanted to say, and thankfully it’s what most people say they get out of the book, is simply an acknowledgement that we do affect each other in ways we can’t predict.

It's important to be aware of how we treat others. Even though someone appears to shrug off a sideways comment or to not be affected by a rumor, it's impossible to know everything else going on in that person's life, how we might be adding to his/her pain. People do have an impact on the lives of others; that's undeniable.

I could picture life—school and everything else—continuing on without me. But I could not picture my funeral. Not at all. Mostly because I couldn’t imagine who would attend or what they would say.

Personally, I never understood the power of having books written about your experience - whatever that experience may be - until I wrote one and started hearing from teens. I just got an email from a reader who said that "Thirteen Reasons Why" was the first time they had felt understood. A book shouldn't be anybody's first time feeling understood and that's where censorship bothers me. These books need to be out there.