I take a slow sip of lukewarm coffee, reopen the book, and read the words scribbled in red ink near the top: Everyone needs an olly-olly-oxen-free.

Normally when a person has a stellar image another person's waiting in the wings to tear them apart. They're waiting for that one fatal flaw to expose itself.

Betrayal. It's one of the worst feelings.

Maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal to you Zach. But now, I hope you understand. My world was collapsing. I needed those notes. I needed any hope those notes might have offered. And you? You took that hope away. You decided I didn’t deserve to have it.

Hannah wasn't my first kiss, but the first kiss that mattered: the first kiss with someone who mattered. (pg 222).

It's nothing. A school project. My go-to answer for anything. Staying out late? School project. Need extra money? School project.

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.