Book Review: Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

Title // Author: Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff (web | twitter)
Genre: Paranormal YA, Ghosts, Mystery
Amazon | Goodreads
Publisher: Razorbill
Release date: January 8, 2013
Source: ARC from the Publisher via NetGalley (Thanks, Razorbill!)

Summary: The city of Ludlow is gripped by the hottest July on record. The asphalt is melting, the birds are dying, petty crime is on the rise, and someone in Hannah Wagnor’s peaceful suburban community is killing girls.

For Hannah, the summer is a complicated one. Her best friend Lillian died six months ago, and Hannah just wants her life to go back to normal. But how can things be normal when Lillian’s ghost is haunting her bedroom, pushing her to investigate the mysterious string of murders? Hannah’s just trying to understand why her friend self-destructed, and where she fits now that Lillian isn’t there to save her a place among the social elite. And she must stop thinking about Finny Boone, the big, enigmatic delinquent whose main hobbies seem to include petty larceny and surprising acts of kindness.

With the entire city in a panic, Hannah soon finds herself drawn into a world of ghost girls and horrifying secrets. She realizes that only by confronting the Valentine Killer will she be able move on with her life—and it’s up to her to put together the pieces before he strikes again.

Paper Valentine is a hauntingly poetic tale of love and death by the New York Times bestselling author of The Replacement and The Space Between.

PAPER VALENTINE is the first book I’ve read by Brenna Yovanoff friends, and I’m beginning to regret this fact. The atmosphere, the writing, and the story in PAPER VALENTINE, Brenna’s third book, were all quite excellent. The characters were unique and interesting and captivating. Plus, as a mystery/paranormal book, I was mostly clueless about the bad guy until just a little before we learn the truth, and it’s a good sign when I remain surprised for as long as I was here. Not that I’m great at puzzling things out–as an avid, constant reader, there are just fewer and fewer things in books that I haven’t encountered before. Thankfully, I don’t often encounter the kind of bad guy we have in PAPER VALENTINE. I read this one a little while ago, friends, but I honestly can’t think of a bad thing about it.

So the main storyline in PAPER VALENTINE by Brenna Yovanoff is two-fold: on the one hand, young girls in the town of Ludlow are being murdered, and as the summer progresses the town becomes increasingly paranoid and worried for their young ladies. On the other hand, we’ve got Hannah and the fact that she can see, interact with, and talk to the ghost of her best friend, Lillian, who doesn’t really look fondly on the guy Hannah is feeling pulled towards: Finny Boone. Hannah winds up involved in the investigation to find the Valentine Killer while trying to come to grips with the death of her best friend, and the secrets she learns along the way. If that sounds like a lot for Brenna Yovanoff to be juggling, don’t stress. It’s all really well done.

I was impressed with the murderer angle quite a bit, but the part that sticks with me after all this time is the insight we get into the friendship between Lillian and Hannah. They were best friends, but the kind where Lillian was the Queen Bee of their clan and ruled through the other girls fearing her rejection and always getting her way. They dressed in a style that Lillian deemed cool, they did things that Lillian wanted to do. So when she died after a long struggle with an eating disorder, Hannah and her remaining friends are basically without a tether. They drift apart and the dynamics of their friendships shift. Brenna Yovanoff really understands the relationships between high school girls.

The fact that Hannah can still see Lillian even though she’s dead was good, but it also lead to probably my biggest lingering question about PAPER VALENTINE: What makes Hannah see her? Does she have some kind of gift? Or is it just some manifestation of her grief? I’m one of those readers who, for better or worse, needs things like this to have an explanation. It can be totally crazy or effed up or fantastical or weird–I’m cool with all of that. After I finished PAPER VALENTINE and came down a little from my “WOW! I don’t think I was expecting to really enjoy this as much as I did!”, I wondered about this.

The relationship between Hannah and Lillian isn’t the only important one in PAPER VALENTINE by Brenna Yovanoff, though. Finny Boone is sometimes hard to get a handle on–he’s got secrets and mysteries and as things get more serious between him and Hannah, we somehow learn a FEW things about him but not quite enough to make it seem like we know him well. I liked that they spend time together almost by accident, and that Hannah finds herself drawn to him despite her ghost bff whispering in her ear that he’s not good enough. See, Finny is kind of a loner and hangs out with trouble-makers. But he’s one of those gentle giants, and the kissing scenes are pretty legit, too. Hannah and Finny are both kind of effed up, and I love when broken people find each other. They don’t get fixed, but they learn that they aren’t alone, and that’s even more important.

PAPER VALENTINE by Brenna Yovanoff had a good mystery, great characters, and really thoughtful writing. (Seriously. PRETTY WORDS.) The villain had a little bait-and-switch vibe that I enjoyed, and I thought Brenna Yovanoff wrote really perceptively about the friendships between young girls. PAPER VALENTINE surprised me in the very best way, and I’m even more eager to read Brenna’s other books now than I was before.

Check out these other reviews of Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

Renae @ Respiring Thoughts: “Brenna Yovanoff’s storytelling is unique, her prose is engaging, and the way she treats characterization is uncomplicated and straightforward.”

April @ Good Books and Good Wine: “Friends, I loved every single element of Yovanoff’s latest and am happy to report that she’s one of those authors who has grown over time.”

Leila @ Bookshelves of Doom: “…the solution totally surprised me in the best sort of way: when I thought back, I realized that there’d been clues, and that I’d (SHOCKINGLY) just missed them.”