A review by kblincoln
Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff
5.0
I don't know what it is about Yovanoff's writing, but with finishing this second book, I'm a confirmed fan.
Maybe its how painfully earnest and real her characters are. Maybe its how she can take things like anorexia and murder and bullying and abuse and make them into everyday, lovely things when her characters get through them.
Maybe its because I love the way her dark, sad images reach down past the walls we make telling ourselves who we are into our little, frightened hearts.
"Someone has stolen the trees outside my room and replaced them with bones-- the kind that throw long shadows on the wall, reaching in through the butter-yellow curtains until morning."
Hannah lives in a town where a serial killer is loose. But death isn't completely unknown to her. She's lived with the ghost of her dead best friend for more than six months now, and only by luck and concentration has she kept people from assuming she's crazy.
But this serial killer is targeting girls too close to Hannah, and soon there will be other ghosts clamoring for her attention.
So yes, at the heart of this book is a mystery, but its not the serial killer one. What doesn't get said in blurbs (even mine) is that at the heart of the book is the mystery of how a girl stops pretending to be perfect and happy long enough to find someone who loves her brokenness.
And for Hannah, that person might be Finny-- the boy who used to take lunch money and pushed her face into ice crystals back in elementary school.
Maybe, when it comes down to it, that's what makes Yovanoff's books so compelling for me. There is no insta-attraction, no undying love, just two damaged souls finding a kind of peace.
The serial killer stuff is probably a bit disturbing for young readers not yet 5th grade.
This Book's Snack Rating: Dark-chocolate covered ginger for the bitter, shadowed flavor of the emotional struggles with the sharp bite of a murder mystery
Maybe its how painfully earnest and real her characters are. Maybe its how she can take things like anorexia and murder and bullying and abuse and make them into everyday, lovely things when her characters get through them.
Maybe its because I love the way her dark, sad images reach down past the walls we make telling ourselves who we are into our little, frightened hearts.
"Someone has stolen the trees outside my room and replaced them with bones-- the kind that throw long shadows on the wall, reaching in through the butter-yellow curtains until morning."
Hannah lives in a town where a serial killer is loose. But death isn't completely unknown to her. She's lived with the ghost of her dead best friend for more than six months now, and only by luck and concentration has she kept people from assuming she's crazy.
But this serial killer is targeting girls too close to Hannah, and soon there will be other ghosts clamoring for her attention.
So yes, at the heart of this book is a mystery, but its not the serial killer one. What doesn't get said in blurbs (even mine) is that at the heart of the book is the mystery of how a girl stops pretending to be perfect and happy long enough to find someone who loves her brokenness.
And for Hannah, that person might be Finny-- the boy who used to take lunch money and pushed her face into ice crystals back in elementary school.
Maybe, when it comes down to it, that's what makes Yovanoff's books so compelling for me. There is no insta-attraction, no undying love, just two damaged souls finding a kind of peace.
The serial killer stuff is probably a bit disturbing for young readers not yet 5th grade.
This Book's Snack Rating: Dark-chocolate covered ginger for the bitter, shadowed flavor of the emotional struggles with the sharp bite of a murder mystery