Jennifer Brown’s novel, Hate List, explores the issues surrounding bullying, school shootings, and recovering after trauma. It tells the stogy of Valerie, a high school girl who is horribly bullied at school, and her boyfriend Nick who experiences similar abuse. Together they compile a list of things, and people, who they hate. Taking Valerie by complete surprise, Nick opens fires in their school, killing many of those on the list. Brown focuses her novel on Valerie and her struggling mental state. It portrays Valerie’s journey from psychological deterioration to hope for healing. While Brown does show the intense effects of a school shooting and how a high school and town respond to it, she more so focuses on Valerie’s own responses. Brown …show more content…
It was a time of coping and questioning. She was very emotionally fragile after the shooting and it took months for her to work up the courage just to go back to school. In a 2010 study, researchers from East Carolina University, Virginia Tech, and the University of Houston studied victims from the Virginia Tech shooting to gain a better understanding on the relationship between trauma coping and distress. In their studies they found that “…engaging in high levels of avoidant and ruminative coping strategies,” results in a higher level of “distress following a number of traumas” (Littleton, et al 274). According to the researchers, avoidant coping is when the victim “[withdraws] from others” which is exactly how Valerie initially coped. Once she was released from the hospital, she withdrew from her best friend Stacy and her family. Brown wrote, “When I heard the door open, I closed my eyes quickly, because I wanted whoever it was that came in to think I was asleep and go away” (Brown 143). This is just one example of Valerie coping in an unhealthy manner. Once she starts to develop a relationship with her psychiatrist, Dr. Hieler, she learns better mechanisms to come to terms with the grief. He helped her work through her parent’s issues, facing her old bullies, and her relationship with Nick. When Valerie finally returns to school, she has to face both victims …show more content…
Every single thing that Valerie went through, even before the shooting, was enough reason for her to lose all hope. Being tormented, misunderstood, and blamed for the shooting drained her. Her mental state was already deteriorating and at the height of her abuse, she witnesses the monstrous and bloody slaughter of her class mates and teacher. As a reader, I lost hope with her but also rejoiced when she started to find her saving graces. Some of the few people who helped Valerie were Dr. Hieler, her art instructor, Bea, and Jessica Campbell, one of her cruelest bullies. Dr. Hieler helped her to see things for what they really were which enabled her to see that she was not the only one struggling through the traumatic experience. Bea acted as a hierarchal, unbiased character who saw Valerie for who she was, instead of as Valerie, the girl on the news. Bea’s words truly resonated with Valerie and would leave her with a deeper level of understanding. With Bea’s painting guidance, Valerie was able to express her emotions in a safe outlet. Jessica Campbell was the character who many expected to be killed. Being such a cruel bully, it was very unexpected seeing how she developed a relationship with Valerie, one that helped her through her last year of school. Jessica helped her acclimate in her return to school and even saved her from a few
Overall the book gives a level of depth and openness that was startling as an uninformed individual. As the book is a direct insight to Lori’s schizophrenic mind as she recalls in detail her thoughts and experiences revolving her stays in the psychiatric ward and halfway houses. Indeed the progression of Lori’s illness is reflected in the author of the chapters in her book. For in the middle of the book, where Lori is in the depths of her psychosis, the story is carried on by her parents
Barbara Dority author of “The Columbine Tragedy: Countering the Hysteria”, illustrates how society becomes hysterical after a teen commits a mass school shooting. The Columbine shooting occurred April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. It was caused by two adolescents Eric Harris and Dylan Kledold, collectively killed 13 students and wounded 23 others. After the Columbine shooting, society looked in every direction for who is to blame for such a horrendous act of violence caused by teens. Dority expresses how society tends to panic, and take away the youths’ pleasures such as video games, music, and the very basic rights young people have. While society posit that media or Goth music is the catalyst for teen violence, it is not the media or Goth who are to blame for teen violence.
Daphne goes through a metamorphosis through her memoir. As a child she acts the way she feels so she is only doing what is natural to her. Because there is violence in her house she acts violent and because she feels like a boy she dresses like a boy. She viewed her as tough and that doesn’t change. However her thoughts of being an under achiever change after her self esteem is restored, which doesn’t fully happen until her stay at the Wilson Center. The Wilson Center is where she has the best perceptions of herself; she feels independent, smart, fun, and friendly. Daphne had a very hard time understanding her thoughts and feelings until the Wilson Center. The patients are who gave Daphne strength, the positive environment let Daphne explore who she was and relax and have fun. The Wilson center represents the adolescence that she should have had. The Dr.’s still make her feel uncomfortable when the gender issue arrises but Daphne can cop with it better because she likes where she is. Meeting Valerie led her to discover her homosexual feelings. It wasn’t the initial meeting of Valerie but later in Daphne’s life she released her true feelings towards women which is the biggest change of all.
In the novel, The Hate U Give, author Angie Thomas discusses the internal, interpersonal, and societal discord of justice by analyzing the internal chaos that consumes Starr’s life, and how it affects her community and humanity as a whole. Starr is a 16-year-old black girl who is navigating through a multitude of tumultuous events in her teenage life. One of Starr’s best friends, Khalil, was shot unjustly by a white police officer. This sparks mass controversy within Starr’s gang-ridden community, Garden Heights, and eventually the entire nation. In addition, Starr faces her own identity crisis, as she lives in a low-income neighborhood but goes to a high school that educates upper-class students. Between these two environments, she finds herself adjusting her
Lorena Mongelli, Larry Celona, Jamie Schram and Kirstan Conley “Why the ‘Bully-killing’ Teen Finally Snapped, New York Post. NYP Holding Inc. June 19,2014. Web. Nov. 13,
Terror, shock, desperateness, all feelings of the Columbine victims. Through the narration of the encounter between Patti Nielson and the shooters during the beginning moments of the Columbine shooting in chapter 11 of Columbine, a memoir, Dave Cullen adopts an informative tone in order to focus young adults’ attention to the ruthlessness of the Columbine shooting.
Deej Logan was just like any normal high school girl. She woke up on her first day of school and combed her hair, picked out the “perfect” outfit and headed out the door. What she didn’t know is that after that day nothing would be the same. Nothing that day seemed to be going right. At school drama was swarming all around her, not exactly what she hoped the first day would be like. By the time the last bell of the day rang she was more than happy to get out of that school. She drove home as quickly as she could but as soon as she got home she realized that she had forgotten to pick up her sisters. “Great.” She thought sarcastically as she sat back down in her car and drove off. Just then she pulled out her phone to message one of her friends about her awful day. That one decision changed everything. Before she had a chance to send the message Deej veered off into oncoming traffic and was killed on impact.
Reading is a crucial part of my academic life, it is a subject that is used multiple times throughout my life. Among the many genres that I have explored, suspense, adventures, and mysteries are my favored because they catch my attention and make me wonder what happens next. Two books that fit these qualities are Alan Gratz’s young adult novel “Code of Honor” and Mildred Taylor’s historical novel “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry”. In the novel Code of Honor, Kamran Smith has it all; a beautiful girlfriend, he is his school’s football star and his best friend got them free tickets to the Super Bowl but his life takes a sharp turn for the worse. Kamran’s older brother, Darius, who fought in the US Army in Afghanistan, is accused a terrorist. He is seen on video bombing the US Embassy in Turkey. Important themes the novel conveys are brotherhood and loyalty. Kamran displays these themes by believing that Darius is innocent. This book has personally affected my life by strengthening my brotherhood and loyalty. I now have a stronger relationship with my brother and we are more loyal to one another. In the novel, Roll of Thunder, one African American family, the Logans, fight to stay strong in the face of brutal racist attacks, illness, poverty, and betrayal in the deep South of the 1930s. The main character and narrator, Cassie Logan, speculates many events during her childhood which takes place in the time of the Jim Crow era. This book has affected me on a personal level because I
In the book The Hate List by Jennifer Brown, the story is told from the point of view of Valerie Leftman, the girlfriend of Nick Levil. Nick shot multiple people in their school and injured more. Valerie unknowingly helped him create the list of victims. I think the book could have been as interesting if it was told from the point of view of Ginny Baker. Ginny Baker was shot by Nick in the face. She had to have multiple plastic surgeries to reconstruct something that even remotely resembled a face. “’I can’t sit here without thinking about… about…’ she sucked in a breath and then let it out with a stream an anguish that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. ‘Why did they let her come back?’” (Brown 69). Ginny is traumatized by the
Young adult literature such as The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, emphasizes teenagers using both their actions and their voices to overcome injustices such as racial inequality and police brutality. Racial inequality and police brutality is discussed greatly throughout The Hate U Give, due to the difficulties the protagonist, Starr Carter, endures when her best friend, Khalil, is killed because of him being African American and situated in an unsafe neighborhood. Starr embraces an inner conflict with herself in regards to speaking up and taking action against the presented injustices she constantly faces. The author, Laura M. Robinson, of Girlness and Guyness: Gender Trouble in Young Adult Literature thoroughly explains why adolescents are
Discrimination based on religion or race has been a worldwide problem throughout history. Through bullying, we readily see discrimination everyday throughout the hallways of Belleville West. Bullying has been a recent problem that many schools are still trying to prevent. The victims are in a tough place, similar to Lakshmi from the book Sold written by Patricia McCormick. Lakshmi bullying was much harder, being forced to work in a whore house, but took the same emotional toll that many victims face. Living life as a sex slave completely changed Lakshmi, and she easily could have given up her will to live; instead she persevered, overcoming her physical and emotional obstacles. With those obstacles, McCormick’s
The title is significant to the plot for a number of reasons. For example, at the beginning of the book an article from the ¨GARVIN COUNTY SUN-TRIBUNE¨ this article explained what happened May 8th, 2008. May 8th, 2008, was the day Nick Levil decided to shoot people who were written down on a list… The ¨Hate List.¨ The ¨Hate List¨ was a list Valerie Leftman began to make in a red spiral notebook, all about the things she hated. People, food, places, objects, weather… In chapter 10 Valerie meets the ¨staff physiatrist at Garvin General.¨ (Dr. Dently) She is then forced to answer questions in order for Dr. Dently to evaluate her. After questioning Valerie is forcefully placed into a wheelchair and taken up to the
“After a traumatic experience, the human system of self preservation seems to go into permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment” (Judith Lewis Herman). The psychoanalyst Lewis Herman describes how encountering agonizing pain causes individuals to become more cautious as a result. The psychoanalytic lens is based on Freudian theories and asserts that “ people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious:...the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desire, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15) High schools a place where tragedy are brought upon people, but their voices aren’t heard. Melinda, a high school freshman, is the protagonist in Laurie Halse Anderson’s book, Speak.
Newman begins her book by telling the stories of two different rampage shootings, at Heath High School and Westside Middle School. Once she establishes the shooters and the subjects of her study, Newman lays out her thesis and explains that her research shows that many factors contribute
The Hate U Give is a story I highly recommend anyone and everyone to read. This books matters. Angie Thomas has put the brutal and blunt realties of race, fear, and privilege that we are experiencing more than ever right now. We see a young woman dealing with oppression and the systematic inequality and hostility that we are seeing more and more through the eyes of the media and how