Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Hardback or Paperback Paperback

Synopsis Valerie is finding it hard to return to her high school for her senior year. At the end of her junior year, a school shooting traumatized the school. And Valerie's boyfriend was the perpetrator. And many of the victims were on Valerie's hate list.

Evaluation Valerie is a sympathetic first person narrator. The school shooting, which happened before the narrative begins, is told through a series of flashbacks and newspaper accounts, so the whole story--and Valerie's degree of culpability--is revealed only gradually. I found this book very hard to put down. I like that it treats the aftermath of a school shooting from the point of view of someone who is responsible to at least some degree.

Universal Themes responsibility, secrets, coming of age, guilt and innocence

Edginess flashbacks of the school shooting are graphic in parts; teen drinking; language (I think the dad drops the F-bomb); the dad is having an affair; and there may be more that I don't remember.

Bonus Factors Deals with class issues; while it deals with the why of a school shooting, it does not try to excuse the perpetrator; guilt and innocence are not black and white, and even the most horrible characters are presented as being complex human beings.

Anti-bonus factors As far as I can remember, everyone in the book is white.

Will they like it? Yes, I really think so. This is a long book but it's a fast read, and I think that even though it's a first person female narrator, that some boy readers might get into it, too. I think students will be drawn in by the gradual revelation of the story of the school shooting. There's certainly a lot to talk about during a meeting.

Recommendation Recommended with reservations, since I don't really remember how edgy it is. Definitely a good choice for a classroom library.