What do you think?
My Bloody Valentine
The exciting Valentine's Day dance plans at Hamilton High turn nightmarish when an obsessed killer begins stalking the six girls who are competing for the title of Queen of Hearts. Reissue.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 1, 2022
This took me *forever* to read.
A bunch of kids plan a Valentine's Dance with some weird pay-to-vote-for-a-queen fundraiser because the library needs new books. Ok.
Then girls start dying. And after each one dies, the next girl with the most votes is like "omg, I know my friend just died, but I'm really excited to be the Valentine Queen" and starts acting ridiculous. And then they die and so on...
I just didn't buy it. Like 5 girls die and the administration is all "but the library needs new books! We're not canceling!"
The killer was fairly predictable too.
Slay Bells was better.
A bunch of kids plan a Valentine's Dance with some weird pay-to-vote-for-a-queen fundraiser because the library needs new books. Ok.
Then girls start dying. And after each one dies, the next girl with the most votes is like "omg, I know my friend just died, but I'm really excited to be the Valentine Queen" and starts acting ridiculous. And then they die and so on...
I just didn't buy it. Like 5 girls die and the administration is all "but the library needs new books! We're not canceling!"
The killer was fairly predictable too.
Slay Bells was better.
February 16, 2022
Okay I really enjoyed this one!! How this book received less stars than that Snoozefest "Sweetheart" by Kate Daniels is beyond me!! 😴
So one by one all the girls nominated for Queen of Hearts for the Valentine's Day dance are getting murdered, after receiving threatening valentines in the mail by the mysterious "Cat"....and they're all found dead with a half-heart pendant around their necks. You'd think they'd CANCEL this damn dance after maybe the 2nd Queen nominee death, but nope. Looks like they REALLY need the raised funds for new books in the library, so what's a few more student deaths?? 😂😂😂
Also all the deaths are pretty gnarly and places this book strictly in the pantheons of SLASHER TERRITORY 💀💀I won't ruin them for you but OH MAN, I was wide-eyed with glee at some of the creative kills here and their accompanying descriptions of "hurtling into eternal darkness" (tee hee, byeee). 👋
Random observations and thoughts:
- There are over 10 characters we are introduced to, straight off the bat. One star is deducted because MY BRAIN GETS OVERLOADED AND I CAN NOT HANDLE THIS. 😂😭
-All of the girls who were next in line to be Queen of Hearts kinda DID deserve to die though 😅Being the top dog brought out the WORST in each girl and we see them devolve into mean-spirited, snide and cruel bitches, who no longer deign to care about their lowly former-friends who are now 'beneath them'.
-The bad boy of the book, Danny, is described as an "incredibly sexy" Keanu from Speed-lookalike which is both swoon AND LOL-worthy 😂💘
-In my humble opinion, author Jo Gibson was quite deft at hiding the murderer in plain sight from the reader....OR MAYBE IT'S JUST ME, because I'm usually pretty dumm when it comes to guessing the culprit 🙃
-The book ends with a kiss that is "something wild and wet, and so perfectly wonderful"...EWW!! 💦
4 out of 5 one-way tickets to lights out, foreverrrr 💀💀💀💀 You'll have a bone-crunching, head-smashing, neck-snapping good time, guaranteed.
So one by one all the girls nominated for Queen of Hearts for the Valentine's Day dance are getting murdered, after receiving threatening valentines in the mail by the mysterious "Cat"....and they're all found dead with a half-heart pendant around their necks. You'd think they'd CANCEL this damn dance after maybe the 2nd Queen nominee death, but nope. Looks like they REALLY need the raised funds for new books in the library, so what's a few more student deaths?? 😂😂😂
Also all the deaths are pretty gnarly and places this book strictly in the pantheons of SLASHER TERRITORY 💀💀I won't ruin them for you but OH MAN, I was wide-eyed with glee at some of the creative kills here and their accompanying descriptions of "hurtling into eternal darkness" (tee hee, byeee). 👋
Random observations and thoughts:
- There are over 10 characters we are introduced to, straight off the bat. One star is deducted because MY BRAIN GETS OVERLOADED AND I CAN NOT HANDLE THIS. 😂😭
-All of the girls who were next in line to be Queen of Hearts kinda DID deserve to die though 😅Being the top dog brought out the WORST in each girl and we see them devolve into mean-spirited, snide and cruel bitches, who no longer deign to care about their lowly former-friends who are now 'beneath them'.
-The bad boy of the book, Danny, is described as an "incredibly sexy" Keanu from Speed-lookalike which is both swoon AND LOL-worthy 😂💘
-In my humble opinion, author Jo Gibson was quite deft at hiding the murderer in plain sight from the reader....OR MAYBE IT'S JUST ME, because I'm usually pretty dumm when it comes to guessing the culprit 🙃
-The book ends with a kiss that is "something wild and wet, and so perfectly wonderful"...EWW!! 💦
4 out of 5 one-way tickets to lights out, foreverrrr 💀💀💀💀 You'll have a bone-crunching, head-smashing, neck-snapping good time, guaranteed.
May 25, 2020
A big step up from Gibson's Slay Bells in my opinion, even if it suffers from repetition and less of an exotic setting for the conflict ( a LOT of time is spent between a generic diner called the "hungry burger" or in the teacher's lounge). The characters were better drawn, the relationships were more believable and the campy simplicity of the prose and dialogue was captivating in its own way instead of coming on shallow.
It was easy to care about Amy since she is apparently the only voice of reason in the entirety of her 5k population small town and the only girl that doesn't develop a massive ego at the prospect of becoming Queen of the Valentine Dance. The friends fell into the role of revealing an ugly or dim-witted side that would make them easier to kill and less sympathetic. Danny, the main love interest, doesn't quite live up to his "bad boy" image, but at least he doesn't constantly put his arm around people or get impressed by the inner workings of a coffee maker. Brett and Neal rolled into the being objectified man candy that every girl is ready to drop for the big leagues of....leaving town for an out of state college? It's crazy how many plans for the future are stirred up by a dance that was made up because everyone was getting bored. It's not even prom or anything. So much could've been avoided by just chilling the fuck out. Oh well, that's the fun of it.
My only issue this time around is that like in Slay Bells, death doesn't seem to hold any kind of gravity. Four girls die in the space of like a week and only one funeral is reflected on, and the town sheriff doesn't think there's enough of a connection to call it conspiracy murder. So much loss so quickly would have put that school, the families, and their kids on lock down. It's not as bad as when everyone kept piling up bodies in the mall meat locker like in Slay Bells but it was a little weird and even sociopathic how quickly the cast of characters recover from their closest friends dying back to back.
It was easy to care about Amy since she is apparently the only voice of reason in the entirety of her 5k population small town and the only girl that doesn't develop a massive ego at the prospect of becoming Queen of the Valentine Dance. The friends fell into the role of revealing an ugly or dim-witted side that would make them easier to kill and less sympathetic. Danny, the main love interest, doesn't quite live up to his "bad boy" image, but at least he doesn't constantly put his arm around people or get impressed by the inner workings of a coffee maker. Brett and Neal rolled into the being objectified man candy that every girl is ready to drop for the big leagues of....leaving town for an out of state college? It's crazy how many plans for the future are stirred up by a dance that was made up because everyone was getting bored. It's not even prom or anything. So much could've been avoided by just chilling the fuck out. Oh well, that's the fun of it.
My only issue this time around is that like in Slay Bells, death doesn't seem to hold any kind of gravity. Four girls die in the space of like a week and only one funeral is reflected on, and the town sheriff doesn't think there's enough of a connection to call it conspiracy murder. So much loss so quickly would have put that school, the families, and their kids on lock down. It's not as bad as when everyone kept piling up bodies in the mall meat locker like in Slay Bells but it was a little weird and even sociopathic how quickly the cast of characters recover from their closest friends dying back to back.
February 14, 2020
Eh, it was no Slay Bells :p :)
October 21, 2015
Actual rating - 2.5
I found this one really dull, and it just couldn't keep my interest. Even when people died, I was bored.
Can't say I'm looking forward to the next one in the Twisted bind up.
I found this one really dull, and it just couldn't keep my interest. Even when people died, I was bored.
Can't say I'm looking forward to the next one in the Twisted bind up.
June 17, 2016
When I read Slay Bells by Jo Gibson, I thought it was a bad book, plagued by idiotic characters, zero suspense and gag worthy attempts at romance. This book, however, is far worse. The premise is promising. A Valentine's Day dance where they want to crown a queen of the dance by having the school vote, except the top candidates are getting killed off. Sounds like an ideal slasher story. But Gibson soon throws this out the window with the most downright awful plot points I have ever read.
For starters, the votes never change. The one with most votes is killed, then the next girl with most votes is killed and so on and so forth. Second, the only girls who have any votes are the six girls who thought up the dance idea, nowhere else in the book does it mention any other girl in an entire freaking school getting even a single vote, only those six girls. Second, and this is one of the two most infuriating things about the book, other than the typical bitchy popular girl (who is the one who actually comes up with the idea of the dance), the other five girls are just regular nice girls. But as soon as they start dying, the next girl who ends up at the top of the voting poll because the previous girl at the top was killed suddenly pulls a 180 in terms of personality and becomes an absolute raging bitch with zero redeeming qualities because now she's "popular". The first time it happens, it comes right the fuck out of nowhere and it's jarring and off-putting, not to mention downright bizarre. Of course, this is all done because the killer wants to kill the girls at the top of the voting poll if he doesn't find them worthy to be the queen of the dance, so this so called "author" thought that this was the best way to go about that idea. And it's so moronic because it doesn't happen once, it happens several times! Each time a girl dies, the next girl that is now on top of the voting polls becomes a horrible person, gets killed, next girl becomes a horrible person, gets killed, it goes on and on and it gets dumber and dumber every time it happens!
Making everything worse is the other most infuriating thing in this book, which is one of the most idiotic, stupid, braindead police force you will ever find in the slasher genre (even worse than the cops in Scream: The Series, so that's saying something!). Much like in the Slay Bells book, Gibson has this killer try to make the deaths look like accidents. Now, the first one I could understand why it could be seen as an accident, but at least half of the deaths are done in a way that it would be easy to notice that they were not accidents, but murder made to look like accidents. But it's not just the deaths, no! The fact that it's murder and not accidents is also made obvious because of the already mentioned fact that each girl that dies is at the top of the voting polls of the queen of the dance competition, but the cops keep chalking this up as coincidence. As if that wasn't enough, the killer also sends the girls threatening Valentine's Cards with death messages, and after each murder, he leaves on them a half-heart golden pendant as his calling card, and it's made clear that none of the girls ever wore or owned any such pendants, but again, the police make absolutely nothing of this and keep chalking the deaths up as coincidental accidents so they decide it's a good idea to allow the dance to continue despite the fact that all these girls are dead! This does not change at all! The police are this stupid all through the book and never think to put two and two together with all this obvious evidence right on their faces! I swear to you, I actually threw the book against the wall and walked out of my house, I genuinely lost my cool.
And much like in Slay Bells, Gibson resorts to the same tedious stuff she used in that book. Once again the romance is enough to give you nausea over how stilted and badly written it is on top of the "love interests" having zero chemistry. Once again you can make a drinking game at your own risk over the annoying amount of times a girl blushes or a guy has no clue about personal space and puts his arm around a girl's shoulders whether they know each other or not, because this is Gibson's idea of "charming". Once again the killer has a ridiculous motive for the murders and it's child's play to figure out who it is, because even the red herrings fail to convey any sense of suspicion, the killer is made blatantly clear at the beginning of the story, so the reveal near the end has as much "impact" as being rammed by cotton balls.
While Slay Bells was bad, My Bloody Valentine was worse in every single aspect, by a huge margin. I have read some terrible "horror" books that genuinely angered me after their interesting sounding premise got me to buy them (I'm looking at you, Brian Keene!), thus wasting my time and money, but none ever pissed me off to the extent that this book did. It's the single worse "horror" book I've ever read and it's a shame that the lowest rating I can give this is a 1 star out of 5, because it deserves to be in the negatives, below zero. Wherever you are, Jo Gibson, you absolute hack, you can ponder my upraised middle finger and go rot in a ditch.
For starters, the votes never change. The one with most votes is killed, then the next girl with most votes is killed and so on and so forth. Second, the only girls who have any votes are the six girls who thought up the dance idea, nowhere else in the book does it mention any other girl in an entire freaking school getting even a single vote, only those six girls. Second, and this is one of the two most infuriating things about the book, other than the typical bitchy popular girl (who is the one who actually comes up with the idea of the dance), the other five girls are just regular nice girls. But as soon as they start dying, the next girl who ends up at the top of the voting poll because the previous girl at the top was killed suddenly pulls a 180 in terms of personality and becomes an absolute raging bitch with zero redeeming qualities because now she's "popular". The first time it happens, it comes right the fuck out of nowhere and it's jarring and off-putting, not to mention downright bizarre. Of course, this is all done because the killer wants to kill the girls at the top of the voting poll if he doesn't find them worthy to be the queen of the dance, so this so called "author" thought that this was the best way to go about that idea. And it's so moronic because it doesn't happen once, it happens several times! Each time a girl dies, the next girl that is now on top of the voting polls becomes a horrible person, gets killed, next girl becomes a horrible person, gets killed, it goes on and on and it gets dumber and dumber every time it happens!
Making everything worse is the other most infuriating thing in this book, which is one of the most idiotic, stupid, braindead police force you will ever find in the slasher genre (even worse than the cops in Scream: The Series, so that's saying something!). Much like in the Slay Bells book, Gibson has this killer try to make the deaths look like accidents. Now, the first one I could understand why it could be seen as an accident, but at least half of the deaths are done in a way that it would be easy to notice that they were not accidents, but murder made to look like accidents. But it's not just the deaths, no! The fact that it's murder and not accidents is also made obvious because of the already mentioned fact that each girl that dies is at the top of the voting polls of the queen of the dance competition, but the cops keep chalking this up as coincidence. As if that wasn't enough, the killer also sends the girls threatening Valentine's Cards with death messages, and after each murder, he leaves on them a half-heart golden pendant as his calling card, and it's made clear that none of the girls ever wore or owned any such pendants, but again, the police make absolutely nothing of this and keep chalking the deaths up as coincidental accidents so they decide it's a good idea to allow the dance to continue despite the fact that all these girls are dead! This does not change at all! The police are this stupid all through the book and never think to put two and two together with all this obvious evidence right on their faces! I swear to you, I actually threw the book against the wall and walked out of my house, I genuinely lost my cool.
And much like in Slay Bells, Gibson resorts to the same tedious stuff she used in that book. Once again the romance is enough to give you nausea over how stilted and badly written it is on top of the "love interests" having zero chemistry. Once again you can make a drinking game at your own risk over the annoying amount of times a girl blushes or a guy has no clue about personal space and puts his arm around a girl's shoulders whether they know each other or not, because this is Gibson's idea of "charming". Once again the killer has a ridiculous motive for the murders and it's child's play to figure out who it is, because even the red herrings fail to convey any sense of suspicion, the killer is made blatantly clear at the beginning of the story, so the reveal near the end has as much "impact" as being rammed by cotton balls.
While Slay Bells was bad, My Bloody Valentine was worse in every single aspect, by a huge margin. I have read some terrible "horror" books that genuinely angered me after their interesting sounding premise got me to buy them (I'm looking at you, Brian Keene!), thus wasting my time and money, but none ever pissed me off to the extent that this book did. It's the single worse "horror" book I've ever read and it's a shame that the lowest rating I can give this is a 1 star out of 5, because it deserves to be in the negatives, below zero. Wherever you are, Jo Gibson, you absolute hack, you can ponder my upraised middle finger and go rot in a ditch.
February 14, 2022
Satisfying v-day slasher! The Valentine’s Day dance is coming up and all the girls are vying for the title of QUEEN OF HEARTS (cute!) but surprise, surprise, a vengeful killer has other plans.
Could I tell any of the characters apart? Lol no. I can’t keep track of more than three. Not to worry, they don’t all last that long anyway.
Some thoughts:
- lol at “let’s have a Sadie Hawkins dance for ~women’s rights”
- We’re really supposed to believe THE top local DJ’s name is…Crazy Mark Hannah
- Side-eyeing but also weirdly impressed by hot bad boy eyeing our heroine up and down guessing her dress size so accurately (but this whole thing felt v inappropriate to me bc he is an older high school dropout telling this younger girl to put on a sexy dress for him hmm)
- Is Hungry Burger the only place to eat in town or is it just that good that the characters keep going back (Sidenote: Smh at “Hungry Burger”. Was that really the most creative restaurant name Gibson could come up with).
- This one has a surprisingly high body count! I did appreciate the variety and creative ways our queen hopefuls met their ends. Four girls dead and “even the sheriff thought it was weird” oh really 🙃
- Killer isn’t obvious until they’re re-introduced at the end. I was too busy trying to remember the other 10 or so characters that I had completely forgotten about them.
- Disappointing that killer falls on a knife and dies (on purpose, I know, but still). I find this to be the silliest and least inventive way to go in a horror novel.
- Love how five of their closest friends died in horrific ways and Amy was nearly killed but they all still make it to the V-day dance the next day. No time to feel sad, we have a QUEEN to CROWN and some making out to get to 😏😘
Happy Valentine’s Day! 💋💘😈
Could I tell any of the characters apart? Lol no. I can’t keep track of more than three. Not to worry, they don’t all last that long anyway.
Some thoughts:
- lol at “let’s have a Sadie Hawkins dance for ~women’s rights”
- We’re really supposed to believe THE top local DJ’s name is…Crazy Mark Hannah
- Side-eyeing but also weirdly impressed by hot bad boy eyeing our heroine up and down guessing her dress size so accurately (but this whole thing felt v inappropriate to me bc he is an older high school dropout telling this younger girl to put on a sexy dress for him hmm)
- Is Hungry Burger the only place to eat in town or is it just that good that the characters keep going back (Sidenote: Smh at “Hungry Burger”. Was that really the most creative restaurant name Gibson could come up with).
- This one has a surprisingly high body count! I did appreciate the variety and creative ways our queen hopefuls met their ends. Four girls dead and “even the sheriff thought it was weird” oh really 🙃
- Killer isn’t obvious until they’re re-introduced at the end. I was too busy trying to remember the other 10 or so characters that I had completely forgotten about them.
- Disappointing that killer falls on a knife and dies (on purpose, I know, but still). I find this to be the silliest and least inventive way to go in a horror novel.
- Love how five of their closest friends died in horrific ways and Amy was nearly killed but they all still make it to the V-day dance the next day. No time to feel sad, we have a QUEEN to CROWN and some making out to get to 😏😘
Happy Valentine’s Day! 💋💘😈
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2022
What. Was. This?!
First off- I’d like to blame a lot of this books problems on its age, but alas, I’ve read a few more recent books but this author (Joanne Fluke) and that simply is not the case.
The MC was so disgustingly goody-goody I wanted to gag. The fact that they kept the Valentine’s competition open after the second death is absurd. The way each of the girls immediately try to date Brett- who barely mourns any of them. Hell none of the characters mourn any of the deaths really? Just going to school as usual??????
The only reason I finished this book is because it was less than 100 pages. But I have to tell you when Amy faints.... ACTUALLY FUCKING faints like a character from an 1800s period drama I almost threw the book.
The deaths were bland, the teacher pushing to keep the competition open for library books and the lack of action by the police. Nope.
First off- I’d like to blame a lot of this books problems on its age, but alas, I’ve read a few more recent books but this author (Joanne Fluke) and that simply is not the case.
The MC was so disgustingly goody-goody I wanted to gag. The fact that they kept the Valentine’s competition open after the second death is absurd. The way each of the girls immediately try to date Brett- who barely mourns any of them. Hell none of the characters mourn any of the deaths really? Just going to school as usual??????
The only reason I finished this book is because it was less than 100 pages. But I have to tell you when Amy faints.... ACTUALLY FUCKING faints like a character from an 1800s period drama I almost threw the book.
The deaths were bland, the teacher pushing to keep the competition open for library books and the lack of action by the police. Nope.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 6, 2022
Amazing might be a little strong of a word but I do give My Bloody Valentine by Jo Gibson five stars.
It was hard to put it down but being a busy housewife and mother I kind of had to do my reading late at night and it was intense reading that my husband scared me a few times. That's how I knew it was really good...
Hamilton High is throwing a Valentine dance and one boy and one girl will be crowned the King and Queen of Hearts. As votes keep rolling in, one person is not happy with the girls who are pulling ahead and he's decided he'll choose the queen himself. As long as they can pass his test, that is, and if they fail then...off with their heads.
The main girl, Amy, is a nice lead character and she does turn out to be one of the nicer girls along with her friend Colleen. All of the other girls remind me of ones I went to high school with that were very good at fooling people with how nice they seemed but you pull back those layers and it was relatable.
Gibson is really good at giving us some red herrings with all of the male characters we are presented but if you pay close attention...you'll discover the one behind the mayhem fairly early.
A pretty decent body count, some perspective of our killer actually interacting with our victims like nothing is wrong on the outside and having our protagonist smiling at this individual is chilling to say the least. There's a subplot of Amy developing a relationship with Colleen's brother Danny and being a sucker for romance...I eat it up with horror like chocolate and peanut butter.
The ending (not the climax of the killer reveal mind you) was a standard "everything wrapped up with a happy ending" conclusion but I didn't mind. If you get a chance to read this book, do it.
It was hard to put it down but being a busy housewife and mother I kind of had to do my reading late at night and it was intense reading that my husband scared me a few times. That's how I knew it was really good...
Hamilton High is throwing a Valentine dance and one boy and one girl will be crowned the King and Queen of Hearts. As votes keep rolling in, one person is not happy with the girls who are pulling ahead and he's decided he'll choose the queen himself. As long as they can pass his test, that is, and if they fail then...off with their heads.
The main girl, Amy, is a nice lead character and she does turn out to be one of the nicer girls along with her friend Colleen. All of the other girls remind me of ones I went to high school with that were very good at fooling people with how nice they seemed but you pull back those layers and it was relatable.
Gibson is really good at giving us some red herrings with all of the male characters we are presented but if you pay close attention...you'll discover the one behind the mayhem fairly early.
A pretty decent body count, some perspective of our killer actually interacting with our victims like nothing is wrong on the outside and having our protagonist smiling at this individual is chilling to say the least. There's a subplot of Amy developing a relationship with Colleen's brother Danny and being a sucker for romance...I eat it up with horror like chocolate and peanut butter.
The ending (not the climax of the killer reveal mind you) was a standard "everything wrapped up with a happy ending" conclusion but I didn't mind. If you get a chance to read this book, do it.
February 10, 2021
3.5 stars. Actually takes place around Valentine's Day! I liked Slay Bells more but this was fun. The beginning was slow and things didn't start to get going until the first death. Characterization could've been stronger. Also there was some strange moralizing of the girls by the killer.
October 10, 2023
This was my comfy spooktober read. Felt like a classic slasher horror movie.
Teens making bad decisions ✔
Teen girls fighting over the popular boy ✔
Bad girls getting murdered✔
Cute little romance ✔
Teaching morals ✔
Villain pov ✔
What more did you need?
I almost feel like I should have kept this for a valentines read but I couldn't help myself lol I know this was prob not supposed to be funny but some parts / things the main characters would say just had me cracking up. Felt so 90s - Especially when describing the teen heartthrob looking like a young keanu reeves specifically from the movie Speed.
I love the cover to this book as well. It was a fun ride and I'll definitely be checking out more books from this author. ESPECIALLY her horror Christmas one "Slay Bells" - I am way too excited to get that book 😂
Teens making bad decisions ✔
Teen girls fighting over the popular boy ✔
Bad girls getting murdered✔
Cute little romance ✔
Teaching morals ✔
Villain pov ✔
What more did you need?
I almost feel like I should have kept this for a valentines read but I couldn't help myself lol I know this was prob not supposed to be funny but some parts / things the main characters would say just had me cracking up. Felt so 90s - Especially when describing the teen heartthrob looking like a young keanu reeves specifically from the movie Speed.
I love the cover to this book as well. It was a fun ride and I'll definitely be checking out more books from this author. ESPECIALLY her horror Christmas one "Slay Bells" - I am way too excited to get that book 😂
February 17, 2022
Camp Factor: High
Giggle Factor: Medium
Believability: In the toilet
Would totally watch this 80s movie 💫
For the genre of vintage young adult horror and suspense, this one was pretty great. I never know how to rate these so I usually rate them for their genre, and not in the scheme of all books.
The general plotline here is that Amy and her friends are in the running for Queen a Valentines Day/Sadie Hawkins Dance. Unfortunately, when you’re in the lead you suddenly become a huge spoiled bitch and destroy your relationships with everyone around you, leading to being targeted by a deranged killer. Happy V-Day guys! There are a lot of WTF moments that had me giggling throughout. As far as thrillers in 80s & 90s YA, this one is a better read than many.
Giggle Factor: Medium
Believability: In the toilet
Would totally watch this 80s movie 💫
For the genre of vintage young adult horror and suspense, this one was pretty great. I never know how to rate these so I usually rate them for their genre, and not in the scheme of all books.
The general plotline here is that Amy and her friends are in the running for Queen a Valentines Day/Sadie Hawkins Dance. Unfortunately, when you’re in the lead you suddenly become a huge spoiled bitch and destroy your relationships with everyone around you, leading to being targeted by a deranged killer. Happy V-Day guys! There are a lot of WTF moments that had me giggling throughout. As far as thrillers in 80s & 90s YA, this one is a better read than many.
February 27, 2017
This story was very cliché and predictable. There was a point where I actually had the thought : "there is no way someone is that stupid". But sure enough, someone was. The sheriff in the town was obviously trained by some online program or video game, because there were 4 "accidental" deaths, with each victim wearing the same necklace, yet each one was deemed an accident. Like seriously WTF. That's what I kept telling myself. WTF WTF WTF
Nothing against the author, though as the the story had good intentions, but seriously......don't read it.
Nothing against the author, though as the the story had good intentions, but seriously......don't read it.
January 26, 2025
Hi! Hoping someone sees this…I really liked this book as a kid and have been looking for it everywhere (since my parents can’t find my copy) for my daughter to read. Anyone know where I can find it for a bit more affordable than $120?! 🙏🏻
December 18, 2018
A nice read with a decent twist . Well worth the time to read if you like this type of book. The plot flows nicely and the characters are believable.
February 13, 2026
2.5 ⭐️
March 28, 2013
It’s February at Hamilton High and Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Amy Hunter and her friends are planning a big Valentine’s Day dance, complete with the crowning of the King and Queen of Hearts. However, someone doesn’t like this idea, and one by one the girls in the running for Queen die in mysterious “accidents.” As the dance draws closer, it appears Amy might be in the lead for the Queen, and that puts her life in jeopardy.
While this was a quick read, I never really found myself that engrossed in the story line. I think my main problem was the characters; they are all very one dimensional with no memorable personalities. Amy is our heroine: the good girl, sweet, and virginal, who gets good grades and is class president. Colleen is her brainy best friend. Tanya is the snooty, popular, beautiful head cheerleader. Gail is a pretty blonde who dumbs herself down to gain male affection. Jessica and Michele are nobodies until it’s their turn on the chopping block, and then they are just irritating.
All of the girls were unlikable. Colleen and Amy are the only ones who seem to have an ounce of human decency in them. Tanya is the typical, backstabbing, gossip queen, and Gail follows right in her footsteps. Jessica becomes a hateful person and tells Michele she doesn’t need her as a best friend anymore, making Michele cry in the school hallway and taking pleasure in it! I felt bad for Michele, until she was walking her dog, and hoping he would keel over and die so she wouldn’t have to walk him anymore. (A dog that loves her and tries to protect her, I might add!)
Aside from Amy and Colleen, these girls are just useless human beings, and I was honestly rooting for the killer to take them out.
Amy wasn’t exactly likable either, but that is because she’s such a boring cliché. I enjoyed reading her experiences with her first date and first kiss, and I liked how she realized who she really wanted to be with had been right there the whole time. She is also kind of dumb at times, but she pulls off a pretty smart move at the climax, which surprised me.
The dialog was awkward. I know I was just a little kid when this novel was written, but I don’t believe that high school girls talked the way these girls did. Their conversations were used to provide a lot of exposition, and that is exactly how it reads. These girls are just talking to push the plot forward, the author is talking through them, they have no distinct voices of their own.
Speaking of the plot, I find it hard to believe that after the first two accidents, the school wouldn’t call off the King and Queen contest. How can the Sheriff not suspect foul play when all the girls are wearing the same half-heart pendent? When all of the girls received threatening Valentine’s cards? I know the principal really wanted a new collection of science books (the money from the dance/contest was going to his book fund), but I highly doubt he’d risk the lives of his students for it. Also, Amy’s mother is more worried about a dress that Amy’s boyfriend picked out for her than the fact that girls are dying all over town? That makes no sense.
The killer was fairly obvious. There were three prime suspects and two of them seemed like red herrings to me. The writing itself wasn’t very good either. As I said above, the dialog was awful and the characterization was poor. The descriptions of the deaths were clunky and amateurish – there’s no suspense (which could be because I didn’t care about the characters), and wording is ridiculous. [Paraphrasing:] “A heavy beam fell from the rafters, smashing her into oblivion.” I hate the way this reads and sounds in my head. I felt like the description was similar to how I wrote in junior high – and believe me, those stories were nothing worth publishing!
This was honestly a rather silly young adult horror novel - basically the teen fiction equivalent of a poorly written, goreless made-for-television slasher movie. The characters were dull, clichéd and often mean-spirited, and the plot doesn’t seem very well thought out. Still, it kept my attention, and I cared enough about Amy to see her through the ending and root for her and Danny, so the book wasn’t terrible.
While this was a quick read, I never really found myself that engrossed in the story line. I think my main problem was the characters; they are all very one dimensional with no memorable personalities. Amy is our heroine: the good girl, sweet, and virginal, who gets good grades and is class president. Colleen is her brainy best friend. Tanya is the snooty, popular, beautiful head cheerleader. Gail is a pretty blonde who dumbs herself down to gain male affection. Jessica and Michele are nobodies until it’s their turn on the chopping block, and then they are just irritating.
All of the girls were unlikable. Colleen and Amy are the only ones who seem to have an ounce of human decency in them. Tanya is the typical, backstabbing, gossip queen, and Gail follows right in her footsteps. Jessica becomes a hateful person and tells Michele she doesn’t need her as a best friend anymore, making Michele cry in the school hallway and taking pleasure in it! I felt bad for Michele, until she was walking her dog, and hoping he would keel over and die so she wouldn’t have to walk him anymore. (A dog that loves her and tries to protect her, I might add!)
Aside from Amy and Colleen, these girls are just useless human beings, and I was honestly rooting for the killer to take them out.
Amy wasn’t exactly likable either, but that is because she’s such a boring cliché. I enjoyed reading her experiences with her first date and first kiss, and I liked how she realized who she really wanted to be with had been right there the whole time. She is also kind of dumb at times, but she pulls off a pretty smart move at the climax, which surprised me.
The dialog was awkward. I know I was just a little kid when this novel was written, but I don’t believe that high school girls talked the way these girls did. Their conversations were used to provide a lot of exposition, and that is exactly how it reads. These girls are just talking to push the plot forward, the author is talking through them, they have no distinct voices of their own.
Speaking of the plot, I find it hard to believe that after the first two accidents, the school wouldn’t call off the King and Queen contest. How can the Sheriff not suspect foul play when all the girls are wearing the same half-heart pendent? When all of the girls received threatening Valentine’s cards? I know the principal really wanted a new collection of science books (the money from the dance/contest was going to his book fund), but I highly doubt he’d risk the lives of his students for it. Also, Amy’s mother is more worried about a dress that Amy’s boyfriend picked out for her than the fact that girls are dying all over town? That makes no sense.
The killer was fairly obvious. There were three prime suspects and two of them seemed like red herrings to me. The writing itself wasn’t very good either. As I said above, the dialog was awful and the characterization was poor. The descriptions of the deaths were clunky and amateurish – there’s no suspense (which could be because I didn’t care about the characters), and wording is ridiculous. [Paraphrasing:] “A heavy beam fell from the rafters, smashing her into oblivion.” I hate the way this reads and sounds in my head. I felt like the description was similar to how I wrote in junior high – and believe me, those stories were nothing worth publishing!
This was honestly a rather silly young adult horror novel - basically the teen fiction equivalent of a poorly written, goreless made-for-television slasher movie. The characters were dull, clichéd and often mean-spirited, and the plot doesn’t seem very well thought out. Still, it kept my attention, and I cared enough about Amy to see her through the ending and root for her and Danny, so the book wasn’t terrible.
February 10, 2018
Read my full recap at http://ogwnostalgia.wordpress.com/blo...
This book was published just a couple of months after Jo's Christmas-themed YA thriller, Slay Bells, and it shows. It's obvious she used the same template for both stories, right down to the protagonist getting together with her best friend's brother despite being interested in some other guy earlier in the book. A killer giving himself a code name during Killer POV chapters? Check. Making his murders look like accidents? Check. Killing to get revenge for slights against dead loved ones? Check. Sending the intended victim holiday themed warnings before killing them? Check. The list of similarities goes on, unfortunately, while neither book is good per se, at least Slay Bells was fun in its over-the-top ridiculousness. My Bloody Valentine is annoying and unbelievable in its stupidity. The characters are unrealistic, treating this Valentine Queen competition their friend made up like it's the Miss America pageant or something, sending them into a frenzy of acting like one-dimensional harpies nothing like the characters they seemed to be before they were in the lead for Queen.
Overall, just read Slay Bells instead. It's just as stupid and problematic, but a lot more fun.
This book was published just a couple of months after Jo's Christmas-themed YA thriller, Slay Bells, and it shows. It's obvious she used the same template for both stories, right down to the protagonist getting together with her best friend's brother despite being interested in some other guy earlier in the book. A killer giving himself a code name during Killer POV chapters? Check. Making his murders look like accidents? Check. Killing to get revenge for slights against dead loved ones? Check. Sending the intended victim holiday themed warnings before killing them? Check. The list of similarities goes on, unfortunately, while neither book is good per se, at least Slay Bells was fun in its over-the-top ridiculousness. My Bloody Valentine is annoying and unbelievable in its stupidity. The characters are unrealistic, treating this Valentine Queen competition their friend made up like it's the Miss America pageant or something, sending them into a frenzy of acting like one-dimensional harpies nothing like the characters they seemed to be before they were in the lead for Queen.
Overall, just read Slay Bells instead. It's just as stupid and problematic, but a lot more fun.
February 8, 2015
Actual page number: 205 pages
Didn't take too long to read.
It's pretty much a very cheesy and fun slasher book where teenage girls end up murdered from left to right.
I didn't like how the book keeps focusing on Amy's problems of finding date for the Valentine's dance because it seems to deviate the horror and more into teenage drama.I mean it's fitting for a Valentines themed book but I wish there are less parts of it.
Also, you can easily pinpoint who the killer is because the red herrings are really obvious.
The characters for the most part are bland.
Amy is the nice, pure, and sociable girl and that's pretty much it. She's pretty bland. The only personality she retains is that she's awkward in romance since she never expresses romance before. Not bad of personality since it's relateable to people in real life who sometimes have hard time in experiencing romance for first time.
There are point of views from other female victims in the book but it's shown they're all jerks or backstabbers. At least, the readers can support the killer taking their lives away.
The killer is cookie cutter of villains of other ya horror books who are insane but at least he's somewhat sympathetic for his devotion the dead girl but there's not much depth of him.
For the scares, aside from murders, there's also rhyming Valentine threats. This also happens in Broken Hearts by RL Stine. Honestly rhymes are not scary unless maybe if it's more descriptive and graphics
The book have some sappy teenage romance parts because of it's Valentines theme but at least the romance isn't some misguided abusive relationship and it's just a girl's first experience of romance.
If you want to read any generic slasher book, this book fits up your alley.
Didn't take too long to read.
It's pretty much a very cheesy and fun slasher book where teenage girls end up murdered from left to right.
I didn't like how the book keeps focusing on Amy's problems of finding date for the Valentine's dance because it seems to deviate the horror and more into teenage drama.I mean it's fitting for a Valentines themed book but I wish there are less parts of it.
Also, you can easily pinpoint who the killer is because the red herrings are really obvious.
The characters for the most part are bland.
Amy is the nice, pure, and sociable girl and that's pretty much it. She's pretty bland. The only personality she retains is that she's awkward in romance since she never expresses romance before. Not bad of personality since it's relateable to people in real life who sometimes have hard time in experiencing romance for first time.
There are point of views from other female victims in the book but it's shown they're all jerks or backstabbers. At least, the readers can support the killer taking their lives away.
The killer is cookie cutter of villains of other ya horror books who are insane but at least he's somewhat sympathetic for his devotion the dead girl but there's not much depth of him.
For the scares, aside from murders, there's also rhyming Valentine threats. This also happens in Broken Hearts by RL Stine. Honestly rhymes are not scary unless maybe if it's more descriptive and graphics
The book have some sappy teenage romance parts because of it's Valentines theme but at least the romance isn't some misguided abusive relationship and it's just a girl's first experience of romance.
If you want to read any generic slasher book, this book fits up your alley.
January 23, 2011
This was yet another book about a dumb teenage girl who didnt think she was all that and she was boo hooing over another lame jock....Enough said it was crap!
April 8, 2011
Amazing, Simply, Amazing.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews