Citation:
Brown, Jennifer. Hate List. New York: Little,
Brown Books, 2009. eBook.
Annotation:
Last May Valarie’s boyfriend Nick went on a shooting rampage at
school. Now a new school year is
starting and Valerie has to deal with the suspicion of her fellow classmates as
she tries to rebuild her life.
Justification for Nomination:
This book explores
coming of age as Valarie discovers who she really is. Difficult parents, peers, and personal issues
are some of the many things she has to work through. This book is written from Valarie’s point of
view. It is in the first person and that
works really well for the book because it lets the reader know all her personal
thoughts. The book is about Valarie’s
personal journey to healing from the trauma of the shooting and the subsequent blame
placed on her by survivors, because of that her personal thoughts are very
important to the story.
Valarie
grows as a person because of her experience.
At first everything is about her and her narrow view of the world. She thought that she hated the popular kids,
but realizes there is more to them than she thought. Valarie also learns to accept the break-up of
her parents’ marriage.
Valarie
engages in an interesting dialogue with Jessica the girl that tries to befriend
her. Interesting and open dialogue is
also experienced with her therapist.
This book seems to have much more of an internal monologue than actual
dialogue for the most part.
The plot
of the story follows Valarie’s reflections on the shooting and her time with
her boyfriend Nick. There is a lot of shifting
between the present and the past in the first half of the book. As Valarie starts to make progress the book
starts to focus more on the present events in the book. When the book focuses on the present events
Valarie is making some progress toward healing.
Genre:
Problem Novel/
Edgy Novel/ Coming of Age
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