Helen's Reviews > Hate List

The Hate List is by no means a cheerful read, but it is an important one. The plot begins in the aftermath of a school shooting where several students are murdered before the shooter, Nick, commits suicide. The story is told from the perspective of Valerie, Nick’s girlfriend and fellow social outcast. Valerie herself is implicated in the shooting, despite being shot herself protecting another student. The police, her school friends, even her own family, all start accusing her of being Nick’s accomplice once the ‘hate list’ they wrote together comes to light. In this list, which was originally Valerie’s idea, everyone who had ever bullied or tormented her or Nick is written down. From Valerie's perspective it was an innocent enough act of defiance, but the list goes on to be massively blown out of proportion once the police realise that Nick used it to choose his victims. Of course, Valerie had no idea what Nick was plotting, but the other characters don’t benefit from Valerie’s internal monologue like the reader does, all they see is the cold, hard evidence, which admittedly is looking pretty bad for her.

I found Valerie to be a surprisingly sympathetic character. Going into this novel, I assumed I would think she was naive to the point of idiocy for falling in love with someone as clearly troubled as Nick was, and then making a hate/death list with him, but, honestly, I came to understand how she did all those things. Brown writes Valerie’s internal voice so well, and conveys her inner conflict and guilt so fluently, that Valerie never seems like a truly bad person, in fact, she’s as much a victim of Nick’s shooting as anyone. She lost the boy she loved, and wasn’t even permitted to mourn him. A lot of prose is devoted to Valerie’s inner conflict, whether she’s battling over her feelings for Nick or whether she could have done something to stop the massacre, so if you don’t like that sort of thing and prefer reading more dialogue and action heavy stories, then this book may not be for you.

I read this in a couple of sittings and, despite the heavy subject matter, it is a remarkably quick read. I liked how both sides of the conflict are humanised; the reader can understand why Valerie hated her tormentors enough to create a hate list, but, at the same time, the people who bullied her were just stupid kids trying to fit in, and certainly didn’t deserve their fates any more than Valerie deserved their abuse. It’s interesting to see how schools full of young people, the majority of whom are decent and well-meaning human beings, can become such toxic environments.

I thought the burgeoning friendship between Valerie and Jessica, the girl Valerie saved from Nick, was particularly well-written, as Jessica finally realises the consequences of her actions in the most brutal way possible. The story had a great cast of characters, and made for a very thought-provoking read.