Valerie invents the hate list to record all the things that bother her. One particularly bad day in ninth grade, Valerie starts filling up a notebook, like “some kind of paper voodoo doll or something. I think I had this feeling that just writing down their names in the book would prove that they were the assholes and I was the victim” (134). Nick quickly starts adding to it, and readers see how the duo’s long-standing unhappiness affects them; the hate list bonds them, and their bond is built on negative emotions they believe they have no other way to process. Ultimately, the hate list takes on a power of its own: Valerie watches the camera feed of the shooting, as Nick goes around picking off students on the hate list one by one.

When Valerie finally reaches Nick during the shooting, he asks her why she doesn’t remember their plan. She remarks, “My brain was moving slowly still, but was picking up speed. It didn’t make sense to me. But then again, maybe it did. We had, in a way, talked about this,” as she remembers the hate list (99). To Nick, the hate list symbolizes a blueprint of people to eliminate in order to make their world better.