Heya. Just messaging you that you got my questions! I don't know if I did something wrong on the "submit a post" function. Or maybe you don't want to answer them, and that's okay, too!
I got them! Just took me a minute to sit down and answer them. They're incredibly thoughtful. Thank you.
1. After reading the re-release, the scene that received the greatest additions/overhaul (from what I can tell) was the one where Hannah meets Baker at her house to talk, after Father Simon rails against homosexuality in school earlier that day. You gave the scene a finality, a goodbye between them. But as far as I can tell, the email Baker writes to Ms. Carpenter later that night didn't receive any changes. This is probably my fault, because having read the first release I'm getting my wires crossed, but is the implication that, despite trying to say goodbye to Hannah, Baker felt so bad so she started drinking again and then felt worse and emailed Ms. Carpenter out of desperation? But I'm mostly curious as to your reasoning about the changes you added to that meet-up. Why give that scene a finality? What about the original version you felt lacking?
Yes, that's the correct implication! Baker tried to end things for good but she just couldn't. I wanted to make it *explicitly clear* in that scene that Baker is struggling just as much as (if not more so) than Hannah and that her feelings for Hannah are very real despite some of her behavior. I always thought she got an unfair shake from some people who thought she was playing Hannah (because, IMO, they couldn't empathize with her extreme internalized homophobia), and so I tried to shed more light on Baker's state of mind in this scene.
2. This is another situation of my wires being crossed, but I also I'd love to hear your thinking. One of the additions you made in the climax was slightly altering Michele, which in turn led to Hannah having a moment of weakness -- of whether to leave Baker to her own situation. I took this as a moment of weakness before Hannah's resolve returned, whether or not she would've seen Baker just a second later. Is that the correct interpretation? Because I can't imagine Hannah would've done what Michele was suggesting.
I wanted this to be Hannah's "final temptation," if you will, to release herself from the burden she has taken on. It is important that Hannah considers how she *could* be free, and yet she still chooses to carry this cross for Baker anyway.
3. You said in an interview with Publisher's Weekly that the story of HNITS wouldn't let you go. After the re-release, and with the upcoming This Must Be the Place, do you feel like the story can let you go now? Or does it still have that same grasp? You know -- and I'm a bit hesitant to say this, because I don't want to put ideas in your head -- but I'd love for you to come back to Hannah and Baker as your writing career, and as their lives, progress. Next time we see them, they're in their forties or fifties or maybe later thirties. It'd be something unique in fiction. But hey, the story's the story, and no need to bring them back if the story's not there.
I do believe HNITS itself has let me go, yes. I'm at peace knowing this novel is now out there in a bigger way, which is something I always wanted for it. I am certain that I will never revise the text again. It's finished.
But as for writing about H&B in general, like outside of HNITS? I mean, I'm never gonna say never. If they continue to take up space in my brain, and if there's an organic opportunity to write about them again in a way that makes sense to me (like it did with TMBTP), then I'm open to that! Maybe they'll even show up as cameos in later books, who knows.
4. This is such a small nitpick, but the thing I wish you'd kept in the re-release was Joanie shaking and taking a shaky sip of water after Hannah takes the fall for Baker. For some reason I LOVED that imagery. lol
Lol that's funny, I didn't even notice that. If you like that image, you can hold onto it as canon. I want every reader to keep their favorite parts of both versions and consider it truth. Make it work for you!
