Hate List Review

[jennifer]

The “Hate List” is about two kids who feel isolated from the rest of their school. They talked about death and suicide a lot by text and email. The book goes back and forth from Val’s present senior year to the shooting that happened the year before in May. When it switches from the present to the shooting the chapter starts with a newspaper article about all the victims who were killed or injured that day. The one thing that I did not like about the newspaper articles was that the author left out two victims. In the end of the book these two people were known as victims and a part of them were put in the time capsule. But during the book they were not mentioned, they were Nick the shooter and Val who created the “Hate List”. The concept of the “Hate List” in the book the “Hate List” was after President Nixon’s “Hate List”. But the two ideas are very different, what Nixon did was order 100 pizzas to his opposition to drain their petty cash while in the book the “Hate List” Nick shot people from his hate list because they were bullying him and his girlfriend Val.
I really liked how the book went over the topic of bullying and how big of a deal it is. In schools bullying happens all the time. I know that after one book the world will not be free of bullying but it shows that if bullying is not addressed then it could turn into an issue far greater than it has to be. It also shows how people will lie like in the book, the principal lied about what the school was like because he wanted more money, sympathy from the world, and the great title of changing his school to be peace lovers and such when in reality people were scared from what happened and they will never be able to really move on because they all lost a part on themselves that day the shooting happened.

[Drewbie]

I need to read this again, but I gave it away and never got it back. Bad move.

[Phoenix]

I really loved this book. It caught my eye in B&N on Friday and I decided to make use of my hour of free reading time to check it out. When my hour was up I immediately bought the Nook version and finished it in less than 24 hours. I couldn't put it down.
I really liked seeing the aftermath of a school shooting from someone who was involved with the "bad side" and what brought it on. I felt sorry for Valerie for being punished for Nick's actions and I felt sorry for Nick too because he saw that as a solution. No one was stepping in to defend the kids being bullied and picked on.
I know this is a YA book, but I wish that more adults would read it and learn from it too. But, I also wish that more adults would do more to stop bullying.

[nine]

i liked this book. And it had a good message too. But i wouldn't say it was amazing.

[Alex]

It was an amazing story with an excellent plot. I loved the open ending because it kind of went along with the 'you never know where life will take you' theme.

[Crystal]

I agree with the fact that people on the "Hate List" were people who did in fact bully Nick and Val. However, this is an example of a situation that got out of hand. Valerie made the list as an escape to help figure out her emotions (parent's fighting/bullies. After a while, it started getting out of hand, but Valerie never intended for the original list to hurt anyone.

[Jamie]

I loved this book. It was very well written and the author did well with the different perspectives and feelings in the characters involved