Second Bookses

Jennifer Brown's Hate List may, at first, seem like a book you don't want to read; after all, it deals with the aftermath of a school shooting. However, Brown takes a different approach: imagining it from the perspective of not just a survivor, but someone left behind by the shooter as a possible conspirator. Valerie had no idea that morning what her boyfriend Nick was going to do, but based on a list they wrote together: the "Hate List" of the title in which they enumerated the classmates they hated, she's viewed by many of her fellow students (and parents and administrators) as a co-conspirator even though she was cleared of any involvement and was shot by Nick herself trying to stop the shootings. She decides to return to the school anyway, and Hate List tells the story of not only her senior year at a school forever changed by her late boyfriend's actions, but also what led up to the shooting, and the signs even she missed.Brown's version doesn't describe the environment that we often here in media stories after real-life events, but rather, of a school torn apart, and unsure where their sorrow and anger should be directed. Should Valerie be viewed as a fellow victim or as the reason behind it all?Brown may try a little too hard to still come up with a perfect ending, but the rest of the book will make readers re-examine the feelings we've all had watching the news, and wonder what was really left in the wake of these tragedies.