Reviews with content warning for Animal death - As Good As Dead Collector's Edition

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

As Good As Dead Collector's Edition by Holly Jackson

352 reviews

kenziehath's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

paigew1226's review against another edition

2.5

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

So frustrating, ever decision the main character makes is frustrating. The whole problem could have been avoided if she installed a ring doorbell or some security cameras at her house 🙄

Content Warnings

pipettesandpages's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

As Good As Dead is the final installment of the “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” series. What a finale! While the first two books really focuses on a mystery, this book is much more of a thriller. While this book is considered young adult, it starts to lean into the new adult area just due to the characters ages and rationale.

Pip is getting ready to say goodbye to her town before heading off to college. She is very much affected by the events from the past two books and it is interesting to see how that influences her choices throughout the book as she is thrown into the center of the action.

This book had me at the edge of my seat the entire time. Much like the other two books it is an extremely fast-paced book that can easily be read in one seating. I never could anticipate what would happen next and I think that is what made it so fun to me. The first book of the series really helped me get back into reading, and finishing the third book as I start my book sharing journey just feels so right. I can not recommend this series enough

Content Warnings

rinku's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Many people say that As Good As Dead is the worst book in the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series, but for me, it was the complete opposite: This was my favourite book of the series because for me, everything happening just made sense and felt justified considering Pip’s situation. It also made me reflect on the topics that are discussed.

The events of the last book have left their marks on Pip. She’s traumatized, and then, someone starts stalking and terrorizing her. The atmosphere of this book is quite creepy and tense but at the same time, all open threads are connected here which was so satisfying to see. One of the big dramatic events in this novel is furthermore that

Max wins the trial

which leads to this interesting dynamic that the police doesn’t believe Pip anymore. Concerning the stalker, it was quite obvious that it was

Jason. The following escape section was so intense, I couldn’t put the book down

Then comes the big surprise because

Pip kills Jason Bell which I didn’t expect and shocked me. This book is thus kinda reversed compared to the first ones – now, Pip is the one who wants to get away with murder. This whole part of the book was so stressful since I was expecting that something would go wrong any moment. It was so interesting to see how they got their ideas in this tense situation. It was for example so clever that Pip started a new podcast season. I also really liked the bittersweet ending; I felt so sorry for Ravi who was honestly the hero of the story because of his lies about the headphones. Max goes to jail as well, finally – at least here, we get a kinda happy ending

I know many people complain about Pip in this novel and say that she acts out of character, but I think it’s just the “logical” escalation of her character. Her PTSD is depicted so well and it’s only realistic that she would start taking drugs as well. People complain that this is out of character for her, but she’s deeply traumatized so of course, she won’t be the same person that she was before. Still, her behaviour isn’t fully understandable and erratic at times like

why she isn’t more worried about the potential serial killer

. Besides Pip, I really started to love the characters here, especially how they all work together to help her. Just because of them, I need to re-read the series one day.

I found the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series in general enjoyable. I liked how critical it was about some aspects, like the police justice system. The characters are all so lovable as well, and I always enjoy series set in smaller cities. Someday, I want to re-read the whole series since I can then pay attention to foreshadowing and other things.

Content Warnings

alchemyarts's review against another edition

4.75

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

hushedreads's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

jamon7's review against another edition

2.75

dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I'm not sure how to rate this book. I definitely enjoyed it, I struggled to get into it at first but once the connection between the stalker and the DT killer was revealed, I hardly put it down. But at the same time, I haven't come away with any strong feelings.

It's been about a year since I read the 2nd book, and several years since I've read the original AGGGTM, but I feel like the characters got weaker with each installment. As Good As Dead felt very plot driven to me, and while I still had residual feelings towards the characters from the previous books (faded by time, naturally), my opinion on none of them really changed. It didn't feel like Jackson wanted to do much with the characters at this point. That's totally fine, I just personally enjoy books much more when I feel strong emotions, which is easiest done through compelling characters. Of course I still thought Max Hastings was the scum of the earth and I liked Ravi and Victor Fitz-Amobi, but like none of these feelings were very strong because nothing had changed. Honestly the character I enjoyed the most was probably DI Hawkins, I found him to be pretty sympathetic.

Jason Bell was a boring antagonist. This book is weird because the big reveal happens halfway through, which at first I was interested in because it meant the twist villain had plenty of time to be evil, but then he's actually not very interesting and then Pip kills him lmao. His motivation for everything is just misogyny, which I'm sure in real life is a realistic motivation, but as the main antagonist in the series finale, I just found it a bit underwhelming. Once he was revealed, he just whined for a few pages about how women never listen to him, and then next time we see him his face is smashed in with a hammer. That was kind of awesome by the way, I didn't expect Jackson to go there and make Pip a murderer, it was a brave and interesting place to take the story.

Of course that posed a big challenge - Jackson had to write half a book to still be engaging, even when the real danger is over and the antagonist is dead. And to be fair, it was all pretty good, it wasn't enthralling but I did enjoy it, the scene where Pip drugs Max was a particular highlight. This latter half played out in fairly predictable fashion, but that may just be because I'm so used to Jackson's style of writing by now. It was pretty obvious that things were going to go basically perfectly, but then something would go wrong and throw everything into question, only for it to all end up okay. That doesn't mean it was bad though.

I have a few more thoughts after reading other people's reviews. Firstly, some people think it was wrong of Pip to frame Max Hastings. Are you hearing yourselves? A SERIAL rapist who shows absolutely no remorse for anything he's done? Life in prison is letting him off easy. Sure it's wrong for Pip to take justice into her own hands, but you can't say Max didn't deserve to go down for it. Secondly, I know everyone loves Ravi, and I love him too, but I agree with those who say he felt a bit off in this book. He was more like a perfectly trained dog than a person imo. Of course it's nice to read him being sweet and perfect, but like from a writing perspective I think he was far too perfect and he like never basically challenged Pip at all. I get that he loved her more than anything but idk. Lastly, Pip could not stop making the worst decisions. I understand that her losing faith in the police and justice system was like the whole point, but COME ON. As soon as they discovered her stalker was showing all the signs of the DT Killer and they found out Billy Karras' confession was very undeniably false, they could have just gone back to the police with that information. The evidence was stonewall, Hawkins couldn't explain it away if he wanted to. They would have kept Pip safe and started investigating the stalker and everything probably would have been fine. Or, as others pointed out, there's no reason not to go to the police after Pip escapes Jason. I totally get that mistrusting the police is one of the core themes of the book, but it doesn't feel totally justified when there are several points in the plot where going to the police is 1000% the right move. The way it is the plot undermines the theme, but if they did go to the police, then the themes are kind of null and void, it's just not great writing. Also yeah Pip constantly going out alone with headphones on while she's being threatened with murder by a stalker is just, what??

I would definitely say this book is weaker than the previous from a personal perspective. I because of the end of Good Girl Bad Blood, I found Stanley Forbes' story to be incredibly tragic, but As Good As Dead didn't really spark any of those feelings for me. There were some tense parts, there was some drama, but overall it felt like the emotional beats didn't hit with enough force to make me feel much about this book, and the characters didn't captivate me either. A pretty solid end to a good series of books though.

Content Warnings

jchudson's review against another edition

3.75

mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

_simply_cyndi_'s review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

math_scooter's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad 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: Complicated

shiiiiit havde gemt det sidste kapitel fordi jeg troede, at det ville være super trist, men i stedet vendte jeg bare siden til den bedste slutning muligt

Content Warnings

More...