New one

I have taken a leap.

Last tri, one of my friends was reading this novel and raved about it.... Because I am still waiting for the sequel to my book to come out I thought "what the heck."

Hate List by: Jennifer Brown 

It opens with a flashback from a school shooting. There are ambulances heard in the distance and kids panicking everywhere. The gruesome image is painted with the words from the journal log. It's a newscast from a popular local station. Multiple kids shot and dozens wounded. Then, it takes a different route and brings us to present day. The killer's girlfriend, Valerie Leftman was shot as well but the police and people did not decide whether she is a killer or a hero. Nick, the killer pulled the gun on himself after killing and seriously wounding multiple students and teachers.

The whole plot is surrounded by this list that Nick ad Valerie made. It was of all the people that they hated. (mostly bullies) When the police found the list in Valerie's possession they questioned her role in the killing, but she denied it all and said she didn't know he was going to kill anybody. Later, we learn how seriously disturbed Nick was. In her thoughts, Valerie thinks back to how Nick was always trying to talk to Valerie about committing suicide and running away. Valerie never told anybody about Nick saying this to her.

When she returned back to school, the kids in most of her classes couldn't handle he being there. In her first bell, a girl who was shot in the leg and who was on the list ran out of class crying. The class then breaks into a very heated discussion about having Valerie back in class. Valerie sits through that bell with her head down not talking to anybody. She calls her life source- her counselor and tells him how hard it is to be back in school. He gives her a way out and says that if at the end of their trimester she is still miserable then she can home school.

I think that Valerie will toughen it out and start to make more friends. I can only keep reading to find out what happens next in, "Hate List" by Jennifer Brown