Sophie Kazzi is in Year 12 at an all-Lebanese, all-Catholic school where she is invisible, uncool and bored out of her brain. Surrounded by Lebanese friends, Lebanese neighbours and Lebanese shops, she knows there’s more to life than Samboosik and Baklawa, and she desperately wants to find it, documenting her hates in a journal that sounds more like a rant list than a diary. Unfortunately, her father has antiquated ideas about women, curfews and the ‘Lebanese way’. Bad news for Sophie, who was hoping to spend Year 12 fitting in and having fun – not babysitting her four younger siblings, or studying for final exams that will land her in an Accounting course she has no interest in. Just when it looks like Sophie’s year couldn’t get any more complicated, Shehadie Goldsmith arrives at school. With an Australian father and a Lebanese mother, he’s even more of a misfit than Sophie. And with his arrogant, questioning attitude, he also has a way of getting under her skin. But when simmering cultural tensions erupt in violence, Sophie must make a choice that will threaten her family, friends and the cultural ties that have protected her all her life. Are her hates and complaints worth it?

Hate is such a Strong Word was published by Harper Collins in September 2013.