A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (Series), Holly Jackson

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

Rating – ☆☆☆☆☆/5

The first book in this very popular young adult murder series is ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’. This book follows the story of high school student, Pippa Fitz-Amobi, who decides to investigate a murder that occurred five years ago in her small town for her senior year school project.

The novel starts with Pippa deciding to take on the case of Andie Bell for her final project. Andie Bell was a popular high school student who was murdered five years ago and the official ruling was that Andie’s ex-boyfriend, Sal Singh, had killed her before committing suicide. However, Pippa is convinced that there is more to the story and this novel follows her journey as she investigates the case on her own, and creates a podcast to document her findings.

Pippa is an entertaining protagonist and she decides to start her investigation by interviewing Sal’s brother, Ravi and they become partners in this investigation. She works tirelessly to achieve anything she sets her mind to and she does not give up, even when she could be in very real danger. She and Ravi are determined to prove Sal’s innocence and fight for him and Andie all the way through.

The plot is well-crafted and interesting with many plot twists and the different characters keep changing their testimonies suggesting that there is something to hide. The format of the book was also very creative as Holly Jackson uses podcast recordings, interview transcripts and suspect lists to complement the story to make it feel like the reader is working on this case with Pippa and Ravi. The book also handles sensitive topics such as mental illness and domestic abuse very well and makes them impactful to the storyline without taking away from the murder mystery.

Overall, ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ is a thrilling, suspenseful mystery novel with realistic and likeable characters that are easy to follow.

Good Girl Bad Blood

Rating – ☆☆☆☆/5

‘Good Girl, Bad Blood’ is the intense second book in the ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ series and follows the story of Pip Fitz-Amobi, as she immerses herself into a new investigation after solving her first murder case.

Pip has become a local celebrity in her small town for solving a murder case but she is still dealing with the aftermath of her first investigation. Her podcast about crime has gone viral and at the start of the book she is focusing on that. She has become increasingly paranoid and anxious about the safety of herself and the people around her and she promises to herself that she won’t investigate anything for a while. However, when a family friend, Jamie Reynolds goes missing, Pip feels like she has to take up this case and investigate it.

Pip’s personality means that she will do anything to solve this case and her investigation leads her to a range of complex characters, each with their own motives and secrets. The publicty of her last case also means that this investigation is picked up by news outlets. She is under lots of pressure and she is also afraid that the media attention is putting her and her family in danger. Pip changes a lot throughout this book and her character development from the first books, makes the story even more interesting.

There are a lot of new characters but each character feels fully develped and they each have their own distinct voice. This book tackles social issues such as mental health again, but the first book, in my opinion, approached them better. Holly Jackson handles these topics carefully but in the first book they seemed a lot more crucial to the plot. The book’s pacing, tension and twists ensure that the reader keeps guessing and that the reveal at the end is suprising as well as satisfying.

Overall, “Good Girl, Bad Blood” is an an entertaining read with characters that you can become very easily attached to, but I preferred the first book in the series.

As Good as Dead

Rating – ☆☆☆/5

‘As Good As Dead’ is the last book in the series and Pip is about to head to college. She is still dealing with how her last investigation ended and is struggling with her PTSD.

The first half of this book is a much slower than what we are used to in this series but it starts off well. Pip is really struggling and she develops some dangerous coping mechanisms. She turns to the local drug dealer and we just learn more about her relationships with the other characters. After her two investigations her mental health has become so damaged that her relationships with others have been majorly affected. She is also dealing with someone harassing her and although Pip is used to online trolls, this one seems different. This person repeatedly asks her the same question: who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?

Pip begins noticing things that suggest that this person is watching her from very close by and she realises that she has a stalker. Pip starts to look into who this person could be and she finds a link to an old serial killer case that makes her question the result of that case. This half of the book was interesting but the format was already quite different to the first two books in the series.

Then halfway through the book, there is a sudden and very significant shift in the story. A plot twist is revealed, however it was one that could have been easily guessed, and then another major event happens. This event changes our views on Pip completely and the book starts to feel as if she has become an entirely new character. Her experiences have obviously had an effect on her but some of her choices seemed really unrealistic.

Overall, ‘As Good As Dead’ was an enjoyable novel, but I didn’t think it fit with the rest of the series. There were too many plot twists that didn’t make sense alongside each other and the ending didn’t wrap up the series in a satisfying way.