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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Hate List

Written by Jennifer Brown

Reviewed by Vanessa Culpepper, BCCHS student

I stumbled across this book one cold Monday morning, I believe, and was almost immediately enthralled. These pages told the story of the ultimate case of bullying that lead to a high school shooting, but not in the way you might expect. Unlike most other books pertaining to this subject, we never truly see the shooters path to this horrid act. Instead we get to know and understand his girlfriend, Valerie. She had survived that fateful day in the Commons and lived to tell the story and become the anew outcast of Garvin high school. Despite being shot in the leg and being constantly called a hero and a monster at the same time, she goes back to her old high school to patch back the shattered remains of fond memories.

When Valerie met our murderer, Nick, she was fascinated by his chill demeanor and adopted it. She fell in love with him and never thought she would have to hit the ground. To Valerie, Nick was never a monster. In fact, Valerie felt she had never met the Nick that took the hopes, lives and sanities of an entire population of students. She had only ever known the human in Nick. Together they braved the storm as the odd ones out and ignored the bullies that favored them as their prey.

Then came the hate list. She was broken apart as she watched what was at first a helpful way of venting take a monstrous form and even more horrible impact on her life. She watched her broken family become tight-knit, with her as the monster they had to protect the world from, and then watched them fall apart. She endured her mother’s frantic mistrust and her father’s hardened coldness. She also had to suffer her own thoughts. With the aid of a psychiatrist, an unlikely friend, touching memories, and maybe even the horses and paint, she learns to shape a brand new life out of the wreckage created by The Hate List.

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