The novel, "Hate List," by Jennifer Brown is written from the point of view of teenager, Valerie Leftman whose boyfriend, Nick Levil, opened fire in a school cafeteria filled with students and faculty; he then turned the gun on himself. She was shot while trying to stop him and inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets. Now five months later Valerie is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year. It's a story of how Valerie has to come to terms with who she was, who she is now, and who she wants to be.
Throughout the novel, Nick was portrayed as being consumed with hate and his perception is that "people hate. That's our reality. People hate and are hated. I don't know if it's possible to take hate away from people." Through Valerie's ordeal at school I was able to see that this was not true. Through high school Valerie was bullied just as much as Nick, yet she was able to handle everything with so much dignity and grace. Her calm apathy made me slightly embarrassed about the way that I have handled situations much less weighty than the one that Valerie faced. This made me reflect on the way that I handle situations. I will try to follow Valerie example and handle these situations in much the same way that she did. She showed me through the way she dealt with the ramifications of the shooting that you can't let a tragedy ruin your life. Even when something terrible happens you have to get over it, keep pushing and fight to move on, which I found to be a very valuable lesson to learn. The contrast between Nick's reaction and Valerie's to the problems in their lives showed me that this hate can consume you, to the point where you hurt the people and things you hate and in the meantime you unintentionally hurt the people you love too.
