Friday Book Review: Jennifer Brown’s Hate List
The topic of school shootings in young adult literature is relatively uncharted. And though it’s been 10 years since the shootings at Columbine High School, that massacre continues to haunt. Hate List (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 416 pages, $16.99) by Kansas City Star columnist and Mom2Mom blogger Jennifer Brown, explores a similar phenomenon.
One morning in May of her junior year, 16-year-old Valerie Leftman’s boyfriend, Nick Levil, opened fire in the school cafeteria, killing six people and wounding several others, including Valerie. Hate List picks up at the start of her senior year, taking the reader through Valerie’s journey of pity, confusion, acceptance and forgiveness. It’s a heavy but satisfying load for the young adult reader.
Starting right away with a quote from the Nickelback Song “If Everyone Cared,” Brown sets the tone for young angst. The facts of the tragedy are relayed through snippets of news articles from the fictional Garvin County Sun-Tribune (based on the names of nearby universities, it’s safe to assume the novel takes place somewhere in the Kansas City metro).
Though Val comes from an upper-middle-class family, her nickname, given to her before the killings, is “Sister Death.” She prefers heavy eyeliner and torn black clothing over Hollister and Uggs. Naturally, she is the target of ridicule. Hooking up with Nick, a dark horse with a vendetta against jocks and blond-haired people (among others) only continues to isolate her and make her relationship with him the primary source of comfort.
