Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

114 reviews

nv0101's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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nickoliver's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I've been in a bit of a reading slump recently, with none of my current reads interesting me. So I decided to start a new book that I was pretty much in the mood for, and it was definitely a good decision, because I really enjoyed it!

I was intrigued from the start. The chapters were really short and had an interesting format - they had interview transcripts and diary-like entries sprinkled in regularly -, which made me not want to put the book down (even though I did; it took me almost a week to finish it, but that was mostly due to the aforementioned reading slump). I also found the story surprisingly funny, though more in the first half than the latter. Pip and some of the side characters were amusing and lightened up the mystery sometimes. They had great banter, and I would've liked to see more of it. The mystery itself had me hooked, though I did not particularly enjoy the eventual murder reveal.

I am quite honestly tired of having to read YA thrillers where the murderer was a father who had sex with a teenager and then scrambled to cover it up.

And I feel like you do have to suspend your disbelief a little at times.

There were some other things that made me dock 0.5 stars, too. First of all, it got a bit annoying that none of Pip's friends - at most Cara, but not even her much - were fleshed out. They'd be mentioned every once in a while, but never to a big extent. Sometimes, one of them would try and talk to Pip about something that was going on in their lives - like Cara's love life, for example -, but because you'd never heard about it before, it was just weird and unnecessary. The book could've done well to develop side characters a bit better.

Pip could be a bit of a challenging protagonist in the first place. I really liked her for the most part, but the lengths she went to for her capstone project were insane and unhinged. She'd blackmail, break into places, contact people she wasn't allowed to contact - and while I know she investigated the murder out of genuine interest and not just because she needed a topic for the project, I never understood how she planned on eventually writing the assignment. Was she going to mention all the illegal shit she'd been up to? And if not, how was she going to convey everything she wanted to say? That was also not really mentioned at any point, so I was just constantly astounded and confused.

I also have to say I didn't particularly like that she and Ravi ended up together, just based on the fact that she was a seventeen-year-old girl and he was mentioned very early on to be twenty. Did that make anyone else uncomfortable, or is it just me? Especially considering the topic of part of the plot, I found it weird that Jackson acted as if this was in any way normal.

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arys_library's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I absolutely LOVED this book! I went into this with low expectations because I see so many people posting about how amazing this book is, I didn't want to be let down. But this book definitely lived up to the hype! It was such a gripping y/a thriller, the characters were so interesting, and everything flowed together so smoothly. Throughout the entire book, I was creating different theories in my head as to what the ending could be and even though some parts were right, the ending was still so surprising! It was pretty diverse which is something I always look for when reviewing books. I don't have any negative thoughts about diversity. It was genuinely amazing! I think the only negative thing I have to say about the book is the similarities to other works. The TV show Pretty Little Liars has the main character Allie, and our main character Andie is exactly like her. Seems perfect until you get to know her and realize she is a bully and will do whatever she can to be popular and loved. There was one quote in this book by Andie's friend that reminded me so much of a quote from the show, it was hard to read this without thinking of it. Even then, it could be a stretch on my behalf, and the similarities are just coincidences. However, the second similarity I think is so specific that it's hard to believe it is a coincidence. SPOILER COMING SPOILER HERE

The scene takes place in the book where max and his friends tell Pip about the night he and his friends hit someone with their car. They were drunk and drove home under the influence and hit a man who came out of nowhere on an empty and isolated road. They thought he was dead and decided to leave him there, with Max angrily trying to convince everyone to lie. But someone happened to see the incident and begin to blackmail them because of it. That EXACT scene happens in the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer, down to the angry guy being the most responsible, and telling everyone to cover up what they did

These similarities are so specific that I have a hard time thinking that this book was 100% the author's original idea.

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