Jay Asher’s book: Thirteen Reasons Why, is about a girl named Hannah Baker who committed suicide and had made a set of 13 tapes containing reasons as to why she killed herself. The main character: Clay Jensen, receives these tapes and listens to each one because he is one of the reasons, along with many other people who made an impact on Hanna’s life.

This book was turned into a Netflix series just last month, and I was anxious to watch it because I had read the book in my health class and wanted to see how they would portray the book. Each episode was like listening to one of the tapes, only with action and drama to be seen.

The characters were spot on, the stories were made well, and the whole series really kept me engaged on what would happen next

The difference between the book and the series is we follow more of Clay’s life and what he goes through while listening to these tapes in the series; where as in the book we listen mostly to Hannah and the tapes while following Clay’s actions from time to time. They also changed an important point in the book, and that is Hannah’s death, but just like with movies, they need to change a few things in order to really draw the crowd and make it seem interesting.

An important topic to learn from either the book or the series is the seriousness of suicide, or depression, or anxiety, etc. According to Medical News Today – Suicide is one of the top 10 leading causes of death, and most of those deaths are teens and young adults. Thirteen Reasons Why shows you all about the warning signs of suicide and how it could be prevented.

If you would like to know more about these signs and/or depression, visit your school guidance counselor for more information.

If you haven’t heard the new Julia Brennan track on KDWB you might’ve never heard of this new artist from Minneapolis. This upcoming artist was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1999. Music has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember, considering she took piano lessons since she was only four years old.

She recollects in her biography about memories of her mom being a wedding singer, and her grandma being Ms. Minnesota. Her talent? Singing and playing the piano, much like her granddaughter. From these two women she gathered her inspiration to become an artist herself.

Some other inspirations for the young singer are Adele and Sam Smith.

Julia released her three song EP “Inner Demons” in the summer of 2016. She had the three songs just sitting around on YouTube until one day she decided to send them to KDWB to see if the popular Twin Cities radio station would play them. The people at the radio station ending up liking her song a lot. They called her back and interviewed her about her new EP. After that her young career took flight as she soon was able to snag a record deal with the prestigious Columbia Records.

Her song, “Inner Demons,” currently is at #7 on iTunes’ Singer/Songwriter chart and is an instant hit in the Twin Cities.

Julia’s voice influenced people with her lovely piano music. Her music reflects on people going through hard times: especially on her song “Inner Demons.” On this track, she talks about how “demons fight their battles with fire” and why it’s difficult to rise against the things that hold us back; most of those things being inflicted by ourselves.

Brennan said in her biography that “Inner Demons” is about a time when her friend was going through a hard time. She didn’t know how to help her friend but she wants to give a voice to those people in the silence.

All of her three songs use piano and vocals to express her emotions. Julia Brennan is a great listen for anyone battling their own “inner demons” or for anyone who wants to hear some soulful music with incredible vocals.

For more information about Julia, please visit: www.juliabrennanmusic.com ⊹ ALL THINGS JULIA  (music-video-bio-art) for articles-broadcasts ⊹ INNER DEMONS video-audio ⊹ INTRODUCING JULIA BRENNAN ⊹  THE MAKING of INNER DEMONS video ⊹ www.gomoxie.org

Arrival, a science fiction and mystery movie starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, was one of the nominees for Best Picture this year at the Academy Awards. This is special, because science fiction movies are rarely nominated for that highest of awards. In order to do so, the move in question must be very high-quality.

So, of course, I went to see it, and I can now confirm that it is, indeed, really excellent. It’s also the kind of movie that is hard to talk about without ruining it, but I’ll try my best to avoid spoiling it. I will tell you that once you see it once, you’ll want to see it again in light of the ending. It’s also got beautiful cinematography; the sort of movie that you’d want to see on as big a screen as possible. I saw it in the movie theater and loved it.

The movie is set in the present day, immediately after twelve giant, featureless oblong “spaceships” touch down all over the planet at seemingly random locations. It focuses on a linguist who is brought in to figure out how to communicate with the aliens inside, squid-like creatures called “heptapods” for their seven legs. The whole movie is driven by a need to ask a simple question – “Why are they here?” – before intergalactic war breaks out.

Of course, the movie isn’t perfect. It’s very slow-moving, so even though its running time isn’t even two hours, it can feel much longer. It can also be quite confusing at times, because some scenes are shown out of order, and the timeline of the movie doesn’t really make sense until the end. The soundtrack is very loud and sad, and can sound like an endless funeral dirge at times.

The ending, however, is fabulous in a very bittersweet way, and the story is overall quite interesting and thought-provoking. I recommend it highly.