Summer Book Response

One of the books I read this summer was Hate List by Jennifer Brown. I absolutely loved this book and I can’t wait to read more of Jennifer’s books.This book was about a Girl named Valery and how she tries to overcome her guilt about the “Hate List”. A few months back Valery’s boyfriend Nick shot some peers in the school cafeteria, he chose his targets from the “Hate List” which Valery helped Nick create when they were bullied or when something about someone just bothered them. Valery tried to stop the shooting, but she was shot by accident right before Nick pulled the trigger on himself.

When Valery returns to school she has a hard time interacting with anyone. She feels guilty, but she knows that she’s not but not many others think that. Her old friends don’t want to give her a chance but her mom and counselor are fighting for her to get back on track to finish her senior year, and help her get through her horrible experience. Along in her recovery she met Bea who taught an art class in a Stop&Shop, Valery thought that this would her pain go away. Val was sooo shocked when she found out that her father and his secretary was having an affair! I think that Valery thought she knew Nick and her father, but then Nick shoots and kills people he hates and his dad has an affair, but at the same time I think Mr.Leftman her father had this affair because he found out that his name was on “The Hate List”. Val put it there because her parents would have discussions very often and she was tired of them. Another horrible moment Valery had to go through was when she was at a party which she got invited to by the girl she stepped in front of when she got shot, her name was Jessica. She was being nice to Valery and invited her to the StuCo; she thought she owed her life to Valery. When they were at the party this guy name Troy pulled out a gun and said he was going to shoot her, “to see how it feels”. I think Mr.Leftman wasn’t supportive enough to Val, even though she wrote his name in The List, she called her dad to see if he could pick her up from the party and he yelled at her in front of his new wife how she was making everybody’s life miserable. She didn’t want anyone to die she was just expressing herself with the only person who she could, her boyfriend Nick.

 One day while reading the newspaper Val, thought of the idea of making a memorial service, I think this was the changing point for her when she actually accepted that the shooting wasn’t her fault. I think that going to Nicks’ grave for the 1^st time also helped her get to the changing point. I thought I was so romantic when she was saying good bye. She said goodbye Romeo, because Nick used to love Shake sphere, and they read plays together in his house. In the memorial service they had a time capsule, I think once the capsule was closed I think it was some closure for her. It was time for her to move on but never forget.

I really like the way the chapters were put in the begging, like one was the narrator and the next was Val remembering the day of the shooting or any memory she had with Nick or from the past, but after the service she didn’t go back to the past I felt like she finally let go.

Hate List taught me many things; you think you know someone when you really don’t. Nick, Her dad, her “best friends” that left her when she needed them most because everyone was going through a difficult time. Also learned, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”- Martin Luther King Jr. With the love that Mrs.Leftman, Jessica, Dr. Hieler, Bea and many others she could continue ahead in life. J