Weekly Response #1

Book: Hate List
Author: Jennifer Brown
Pages Read: 1-42

   I recently started the book Hate List I was surprised at how quickly the book actually started. There was no build up to the big event, no explaining characters, just right into the action right away. The book is written in an interesting way it jumps from present, to past, than to news articles. I find this really interesting because there is always new information and it is never really slow which I like. This is not my first reading response, I have taken 3 classes with Mrs McLauchlan over my high school years, and I have used the post - it note method of keeping track of my ideas, but I have always had a hard time making comments. I ask a lot of questions and this response is no different majority question post -its. My goal for this semester is to make more comments throughout my reading.
   My first question of the reading I did regards who was actually the instigator of the shooting. In the book , it does not actually clarify if it was all Nicks doing (Valerie's boyfriend) or if Valerie was also directly apart of it. In the book it says a couple times that she has no idea that he was going to do it, but I feel like she had some suspicion and had some involvement. Valerie in the book has been referred to as a "hero", but she is struggling with being referred to as a hero which adds to my suspicion of if she is actually involved in the plans to kill the students she did not like. My question has yet to be answered but I hope it will be soon.
   My second question is about the character Mr Kline and his death. I wonder if Nick killed Mr Kline because he was 'too close' to Valerie. There has not been much said about Mr Kline, but Valerie briefly says that he was a good guy. This is why I am questioning it. I do not see any other reason for Nick to have anything against this teacher. I hope to find out more as I carry on throughout the book to answer this question because this is a question I feel the need to have an answer to.
   The first comment I had when I started reading this book is that school shootings are becoming all to common. This makes me kind of nervous because you never know what will be coming tomorrow. I wish that this reality would just disappear because I do not believe anyone should go through something like that. I hope that it would never happen to me or anyone I know but you never know what tomorrow brings.