The story begins five months after the shooting of fellow classmates including his girlfriend, Valerie, by Nick in the school cafeteria. Nick shot people on the "hate list" initially created by Valerie but later on included people they both didn't like. During the shooting, Valerie, or Val, saved the life of a classmate, but not on purpose.
After a summer of staying secluded in her bedroom, Val must go back to her old school that holds good and bad memories, old friends (that aren't so friendly anymore), family members that aren't very supportive, and people who had good and bad memories of her as well. I do like that at the beginning of each chapter, the book gives us a snip it of what lead up to, during, and the immediate aftermath of the shooting. The author gives us enough information to understand what is happening in each chapter and why it is happening. It's hard to figure out if Val is the hero, villain, bully, victim, or survivor. In the end, I realized she is all of those, but most of all she is a survivor. Eventually she is able to come to terms with what happened and her role in the tragedy.
The author had a play on words that I didn't catch on to until the end, but it brought some much needed humor, because honestly I was in tears at the end of the story. The humorous part was some of the character names, such as Dr. Heiler was pronounced Healer. It fits well, because he is Valerie's psychiatrist. Nick's last name was Levil almost like evil. Valerie's last name was Leftman, because she was left to deal with the aftermath. There are many more like that as well, which brought a smile to my face. I found a trailer on Youtube for the book: Trailer for the Hate List The trailer is a quick summary.This book is geared more to the American teenager and dealing with teen violence in secondary settings. As a teacher, I would use this book for 10th-12th graders. One way of using this book would be to address bulling issues in school. It could be paired up with journal entries of actual school shooters,and compare and contrast both the journal entries and the book. Another way to use this book is to create an understanding of the effects of bullying using a whole group book study. At the end of the book, the author lists what bulling is, for example undertaking malicious activity online, and gossiping and spreading rumors about someone, just to name a few. This list is referenced from www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa,gov/kids/. Jennifer Brown also includes a list of helpful websites such as bullying.org, http://www.meangirlsnotcool.com and programs to make your school a safer place such as www.stop-volence.org, and www.community-matters.org/safe-school-ambassadors. The author also listed discussion questions for students that are really thought provoking with the focus on what caused Nick to shoot.
We all have had teen anguish, but the Hate List made me dig a little deeper about why these things happen in our schools. For me school was always a safe haven, this book made me realize it isn't always that way for everyone. It is a very insightful read.
