"The Hate List" by Jennifer Brown

2009 edition cover, courtesy of TinasBookReviews.com

                With a title like "Hate List", the reader immediately gets a sense that this isn't going to be a happy story. It revolves around the struggles of high school student Valerie, whose boyfriend Nick went on a shooting spree at the their high school. What began to Valerie as a way to vent her frustrations with bullies, her parents' relationship difficulties, and other life issues turned to tragedy when Nick took the Hate List they had written and used it as a list of targets, causing many people in her community to see her as an accomplice to the attack.

                "Hate List" is told through two timelines: the present Valerie who must deal with seeing people whose lives were changed after months in recovery and the past Valerie who is figuring out how different her life has become immediately following the disaster. Each chapter also begins with a miniature news article covering bits of how the shooting played out. As she returns to school, Valerie is forced to confront people who see her as a threat and struggle with her own emotions as she grows to feel that even those people she thought loved her most, her family, believe her to be a public menace. Valerie struggles to get on with her life with the support of her therapist, Dr. Hieler, who gives Valerie someone to talk to who won't judge or condemn her, and Stacey, the girl whose life Valerie saved, is the girl who first told the police that Valerie was innocent of any wrong-doing, and who works with Valerie to come to grips with her feelings about school.

                "Hate List" is a darkly emotional book with a hopeful ending that shows that even the most dire of stigmas can be overcome with love and support. It also emphasizes that people shouldn't try to deny their feelings for the sake of other but they should also not let those emotions control what they do. "Hate List" almost shows that there are two sides to everything, even people who are considered to be total monsters.

This book has won the following awards:
School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
Michigan Library Association's Thumbs Up! Award
Louisiana Teen Readers Choice award
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
2010 Thumbs Up! Winner
2011 Arkansas Teen Book Award
2012 Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award
VOYA "Perfect Ten"
YALSA 2012 Popular Paperback

Brown, Jennifer. Hate List. New York: Little, Brown, 2009. Print.