Paper Valentine is about a a town that has been having a summer serial killer problem. The heroine, Hannah, sees the ghost of her late anorexic friend Lillian. Lillian was your typical Queen bee who wasn't as strong on the inside as her seemingly weaker friend Hannah. Hannah doesn't give herself much credit for being strong because she's too busy putting on a facade to please the other people in her life. The other members of their clique aren't worth noting. Angelie, is a raging bitch, but not interesting. She wears boring store clothes and spends her time trying to replace Lillian like Heather Duke did in Heathers. Carmen and Jessica are as mindless as the A group in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. We're seen their type countless times before.Hannah would absolutely get on with Romy and Michelle or Claire from Pretty in Pink.
Her little sister Ariel is leagues better than any of her so-called friends. She spends a fair bit of time walking Ariel and her friend Pinky back and forth to music class. This is where she runs into the local bad Finny she has a crush on.
Lillian, the ghost, is obsessed with the murders and convinces Hannah to sneak at her the crime scene photos. [Do police stations actually use local camera stores rather than have their photographs developed at the station?]
A year before Lillian died she was interested in the first murder and kept a scrap-book of all the newsclippings. They had a seance which revealed that the killer left paper valentines.
The book was enjoyable while reading it even if the mystery itself ended up not being that exciting.