Hate List

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2009

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Part 3, Chapters 20-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3

Part 3, Chapter 20 Summary

The news article in this chapter captures the story of Amanda Kinney, a custodian at Garvin High who knew Nick outside of school, as the two lived in the same neighborhood. Kinney, who suffered a gunshot wound while hiding students in the janitor’s closet, describes Nick as a good kid.

Dr. Hieler and Valerie have an unproductive session in which Valerie shows up late because she has weekend detention. The session ends early, before her mother arrives to pick her up, so Valerie wanders across the street to a strip mall.

Distracted by an explosion of glitter from one of the stores, Valerie heads toward it, admitting, “Curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know what kind of spill could look so glorious, so shiny. Spills are usually ugly and messy, not beautiful” (245). Here, she meets Bea, an eccentric artist, who invites Valerie to paint on a canvas. Valerie describes the first swipe with a paintbrush: “The best way I can describe the feeling was that it was miraculous. Or maybe soulful. Or maybe both” (249). Valerie finds the act healing, her problems “dwarfed” by the positive energy and flurry of activity within the story (246). Bea invites Valerie to come back thefollowing week.

Part 3, Chapter 21 Summary

That night, Valerie scavenges for food when she knows Frankie is away at a camp retreat and her mother is at a support group; this is how she usually eats, alone at night, when she thinks her family is asleep or gone. Tonight, however, she finds her father eating a bowl of stale cereal. When he sees her, he bitterly remarks there is nothing but cereal in the house. He says the cereal is stale, adding that “‘[e]verything in this house is goddamn stale’” (253). Valerie offers to order a pizza, an offer her father harshly refuses, alienating Valerie. Though her interaction with her father is a low point, Jessica Campbell offers to eat lunch with Valerie so Valerie does not get detention.

Part 3, Chapters 20-21 Analysis

After being banned from solitary activity and eating by herself, Valerie feels she is wasting her mother’s and Dr. Hieler’s time. Frustrated, she discovers an art store; Bea’s eccentric character and positive energy neutralizes Valerie’s dark energy, similar to how Valerie’s relationship with Dr. Hieler works. Upon seeing the haphazard and eclectic art shop, Valerie remarks, “Spills are usually ugly and messy, not beautiful” (245). Valerie considers herself a mess; those around her have led her to believe messes like her are a bad thing, but Bea shows Valerie that messes can be a good thing. This infuses Valerie with hope: perhaps Valerie can morph from a mess into something beautiful as well.

The positivity helps Valerie power through a depressing encounter with her father. Despite her father’s negativity, the word “stale” makes Valerie think about the stale pizza she eats at lunch. Just as Mr. Angerson busts her for eating alone, Jessica Campbell arrives and sits next to Valerie in the hallway, making her solitary activity a lunch for two and making Jessica Valerie’s savior for a second time. Valerie also uses art as therapy when she celebrates the moment by drawing Mr. Angerson as a human butt wearing a suit and tie. Instead of writing his name in a hate list, she draws a picture of him that is somewhat comical.