Hate List - a review by George Morejon

Hate List
by Jennifer Brown
**** stars

What would you feel like if your school was shot up by another student? Now what if that other student was the person you were going out with? And what if you were accused of helping them? This is what happen with Valerie, the young girl in Hate List whose boyfriend, Nick, one day in may decided to put 'their' plan into action. After struggling to get over the tramatic experience, she got shot in the leg, not to mention was a prime suspect for making the 'hit list', she has to go back to the same school for her last year. What will people think of her?

They'll hate her, that's what. The unity presented in the newspapers isn't real she sees, with all the normal fighting and argueing still happening. But she makes a friend in an unlikely person, one of her worst tormenters from the year before, and takes on a project to honour their classmates.

This was a 5 hour book that had an interesting concept that i hadn't put together before, a list of people a person hates whichh leads to a school shooting. It plays out where you can see Valerie as either a cause of the problem or the victim, and i saw her as a victim. The mother was too overprotective, always worrying about protecting the world from her daughter after the event. I agreed with Valerie's unlikely friend when she said "It's not your fault. After all, you didn't shoot anyone."