Hate List

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2009

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Part 2, Chapters 6-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2

Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary

Part 2 begins in the past, with Valerie recollecting the events immediately following the shooting. She wakes up in a hospital bed after surgery. As her parents and the police reveal more information to Valerie about the shooting, she expresses shock when they explain Nick shot her. Valerie begins to cry uncontrollably. At a loss, her parents fight and leave the room; Valerie is alone with her brother, Frankie, who wants to know what she did. Valerie, unable to answer, realizes she bears responsibility for the shooting that day, but remains unable to process that guilt just yet. When Valerie asks about Nick, Frankie tells her Nick committed suicide shortly after shooting Valerie.

Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary

Valerie shares more about herself as she explains the origins of her romance with Nick and her former, growing obsession with hate and anger: “It’s funny that the name that would turn out to be the most recognizable of my class […] Nick Levilwas a name nobody’d heard of before our freshman year” (131). In fact, outside of their small crowd, Nick didn’t seem known for anything other than getting picked on and coming from the poorer part of town. She describes Nick as the opposite of everyone else: his clothes old, cheap, and worn, and that he had a huge chip on his shoulder. Valerie assumes, “Like me, he wasn’t part of the in crowd and, like me, he didn’t want to be” (132).

As she ponders this, Detective Panzella, investigating the shooting, visits Valerie, questioning the extent of her involvement in Nick’s plan. Fueled by reports that Nick asked her about a plan the day of the shooting, Panzella confronts Valerie with the hate list she made. He also has email and text exchanges between the Valerie and Nick, where she and Nick state all Skinny Barbie Rich Bitches (SBRB’s) need to die. The emails also make several other references to shooting or torturing people. Panzella uses this as proof of Valerie’s involvement; Valerie replies, “We were joking. It was just a stupid joke” (153). To this, Panzella responds that everyone, including Valerie’s father and her best friend, Stacey, are working with the police, providing evidence of Valerie’s guilt.

Part 2, Chapters 6-7 Analysis

When Valerie awakes in Chapter 6, she has blocked out any memory of the shooting. The first voice she recognizes is her father’s, which sounds “tense, strained, terse,” like it always did, as she watches him in her hospital room use a cellphone to check into work (120). Valerie then notices her mother, whom she reaches for, but her mother, she senses, “leaned away from [Valerie]. Not jerked away—it was way too subtle of a movement to be considered a jerk” (122). It’s as though her own mother wants nothing to do with her.

In flashback, Valerie traces Nick’s irresistibility to the growing changes she experienced; she watched her nemesis, Christy Bruter, become more popular, as her own family life disintegrated. Valerie reactionarily started cutting holes into her clothing and wearing dark make up. She developed a loner persona, similar to Nick. Valerie emphasizesthe importance of their fit together, in a world where they didn’t fit anywhere else.

Detective Panzella’s interview in Chapter 7 reveals an important critique on society’s view of bullying. During the interview, Panzella asks why the shooting happened. Valerie thinks it never occurred to her to ask why, as the answer—the bullying—is obvious to her. She recalls a night around Christmas, when Nick was so proud to take her on a date to the movies in his mom’s car, and Chris Summers threw a soda at the car and humiliated Nick. However, she figures Panzella doesn’t want to hear about that. She recalls Nick’s reaction that night:

His face, just a few moments ago grinning, had totally fallen. Almost withered. His cheeks had bright red patches on them and his jaw was trembling. I could almost feel the embarrassment and disappointment radiating off of him, could almost see him crumple into defeat before my eyes (148).