Is 13 Reasons Why based On A True Story

After the SATs, my niece’s essay went viral online. It was titled: The Pains of Living in Someone Else’s Home. During her freshman year, my niece, Kristen, had moved in with us. Afraid that she might not settle in well, I made sure she got everything my own daughter, Gabrielle, had. I bought them all the same things. However, ten days after the SATs, Kristen’s essay went viral, and a target was painted on my back. [Why did you abuse me when my parents send you money for my living expenses every month? Why did you make me feel like vermin living in your house?] In the end, because Kristen accidentally revealed our location, I was nearly killed in a car crash perpetrated by a self-righteous netizen. Gabrielle was doxxed and bullied online. In the end, she broke down and committed suicide. Before I died, I went back in time. When I opened my eyes, I found myself back on the day of the SATs. Kristen and Gabrielle were holding hands as they walked out of the school.

After fifteen years away, I was finally brought back to the DeLuca family. I thought I was returning to my real home. Instead, I walked into a house where the adopted daughter wanted me dead, my father treated me like a burden, and my brothers would rather watch me bleed than make her cry. On my first day back, she set dogs on me. That night, I was dragged to the top of the observatory and forced to apologize to her. When I fell from the tower covered in blood, they still called me a liar. Because in the DeLuca family, I may have been the real daughter by blood— but she was the daughter they loved. She thought she could bully me, poison me, and freeze me to death without consequence. She was wrong. Because the night I nearly died, my mother finally chose me—and turned a gun on the whole DeLuca family.

I am in a serious relationship with Charles. We are in the same class. We love each other completely. One ordinary afternoon we walk into my house and discover my mother and his father in bed. Before either of us can speak, his mother appears in the doorway. She sees everything. She begins to cry, then she jumps from the stairs. My mother and his father run away together. Charles buries his mother and turns every piece of his grief into hatred aimed at me. The school decides I am the reason two families are destroyed. They call me bastard. They call me homewrecker. They come to my house, take what they want, and destroy the rest. Charles writes the word on my door and on my desk. Stephanie, who always wanted him, is now his girlfriend. She pretends to be my friend while she helps keep the wound open. I cry every night. I ask the same questions over and over: What did I do wrong? Why is this my fault? I have no father. I never tried to take Charles’s father. I only loved the boy who is now trying to erase me. This is not a story that happened years ago. This is happening now, and the pain is constant.

After his sister is brutally attacked and crippled investigating the rape of a thirteen-year-old, Richard Baimbridge rushes back to his hometown of Wilmington, NC, to assist in her recovery only to come face to face with his tormented past and a dark family secret. Serving as his sister's legs, he fights to stay above the flood of childhood trauma as he is drawn into the dark underside of this quiet coastal community where he becomes the primary suspect in the murders of Wilmington's young girls in this riveting suspense thriller that explores the special bond between a brother and sister. More than 500,000 copies sold worldwide. "Bill Benners is a fresh and welcomed new voice in crime fiction. My Sister's Keeper is a compelling and original psychological thriller. Awesome, powder-keg suspense!" --Andrew McAleer, Crimestalker Casebook/crimestalkers.com

After the SAT, my daughter turned into something I didn't recognize. She repeatedly stabbed her grandmother, who had raised her, until the old woman bled to death. She pushed her little brother from the tenth floor and killed him on the spot. My wife and I tried to talk her down, our voices shaking, but she only laughed. "Grandma and Caleb were too good to me. That's why they had to die! And you two worked so hard to raise me. You paid for my education and gave me everything. You were too good to me, so you have to die!" Then she set us on fire. I closed my eyes in despair. When I opened them again, I was back one week before my daughter's SAT. This time, I installed a hidden camera in her bedroom. I didn't care what it took. I was going to find out why she killed us. When my wife and I watched the footage later, neither of us could say a word.

From the day I was born, Mom never treated me like her daughter. I was Catherine Baldwin's older sister, the example Mom used to keep her in line. When Catherine stole ten dollars from Mom's purse to buy stickers, Mom made me stand facing the living room wall all afternoon. Then she pointed at me and told Catherine, "Look at Allison. For every dollar you steal, she stands there for an hour. You do the math." When Catherine refused to eat her vegetables, Mom stopped giving me breakfast for three days. I got so hungry that I snuck into the kitchen and ate cold leftovers straight from the fridge. When Mom caught me, she didn't yell. She simply turned to Catherine and said, "See how hungry Allison is? Keep being picky, and you'll be the one who goes without food next time." When Catherine started dating in middle school, and a teacher caught her passing notes to a boy in class, Mom sent me to the school in her place. She made me stand in the main office and read Catherine's written apology aloud in front of the teachers. Halfway through, my voice gave out. Mom snatched the paper from my hands and finished reading it herself, slowly and clearly, making sure everyone heard every word. Afterward, she pulled me into the hallway and said, "Catherine has a reputation to protect. I couldn't let her be humiliated in front of her teachers. You're her sister. It's your job to take the fall for her." I was 15, and Catherine was 13. By then, I had already been punished for her, gone hungry for her, and humiliated myself for her. It took me years to realize that was only the beginning. The worst was yet to come.