Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Have you ever lost someone you loved? Has this person ever committed something so terrible that you've just felt torn? Was he or she the hero or the bad guy? Jennifer Brown's Hate List hits the mark on young adult fiction. Sixteen year old Valerie didn't fit in or at least she felt that she didn't fit in...until she met her boyfriend, Nick. They just clicked especially when it came to how they felt about the classmates who bullied them. So, Valerie and Nick compile a "hate list". They placed the names of people who wronged them. Little did she know that this would be the list that Nick used to kill their classmates.

After not seeing Nick for awhile, Valerie is worried that they were breaking up. So one day in May, Nick shows up with a purpose Valerie has no knowledge. They enter the cafeteria together and Nick begins his terror. Valerie is in shock and sees that Nick is targeting one of the most popular girls in school. She throws herself in front of her classmate--Valerie is wounded in the leg. At the end of his terror, Nick takes his life.

This book is a series of flashbacks and present events through Valerie's eyes. For anyone who has experienced a school shooting or bullying--Jennifer Brown has carefully woven a fiction work that will end in life lessons that are refreshing and hopeful. Try it out. Let me know what you think.