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Hate List Quotes

Decent Essays

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

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