Confessions of a Hater
By Tracy Moore,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Frank, clever, mean-girl tale has mature content.
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What's the Story?
Hailey Harper's sudden transfer to West Hollywood High is terrifying, but it gives this self-proclaimed dork a chance to reinvent herself, thanks to the discovery of college-age sister Noel's dusty old diary, which doubles as a bible on how to be a \"hater.\" Armed with ruthlessness, Hailey takes on a new school, and a new popular crowd, but as she navigates the shark-infested waters of high school life, she learns a thing or two about what it means to beat someone at their own game.
Is It Any Good?
Calling all misfits and outcasts: CONFESSIONS OF A HATER is a dream for anyone who wished she'd had a secret handbook to transform from a nobody to a somebody. Only to walk away, of course, when she realized the cool crowd wasn't really that cool -- and then go start her own cool crowd. Though the premise is a bit of a stretch, the dilemmas and concerns here are as old as time -- or, at least, as old as the invention of the teenager -- and this book confronts them all: the cliques, the popularity contests, the embarrassments, the struggles with identity, and the endless battles over appearance. It's all told in a really funny insider voice that seems to get it.
Parents, however, may take issue: There's a very mature voice here, one that cusses up a storm, casually breaks the rules (and a handful of laws), experiments with (oral) sex and alcohol use. To say nothing of characters dotted throughout who joke about weed or shoplift clothes. There's a teen pregnancy that nearly undoes a girl, and another who will come undone over her affection for snorting Adderall. That said, the narrator's self awareness, intelligence, compassion, and desire to be a good person frames this foray, and the lessons she learns about the price of revenge are poignant.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about cliques. Are you in a clique at your school? What's it like? How do these cliques interact?
Why are books about navigating the high school social hierarchy so popular? What others have you read? How does this one compare?
Confessions of a Hater presents casual profanity, drug use, and divorce as fairly run-of-the-mill parts of modern teen life. Does this seem exaggerated for entertainment value, or is it an accurate portrait of the teen experience?
Book Details
- Author: Caprice Crane
- Genre: Coming of Age
- Topics: Friendship, High School
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
- Publication date: August 27, 2013
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 14 - 17
- Number of pages: 368
- Available on: Paperback, Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, iBooks, Kindle
- Last updated: August 7, 2022
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