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A review by mceleste22
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Welcome to a ramble of thoughts about the book! ♕I’ll try to make it make sense:) ♕
First of all, if you’re deciding whether to read it or not, here’s a few things that might help you decide:
- Reliable narrator.
- Mystery gets solved in ONE book (at least it does resolve all the main parts and details given, and from the synopsis of the next it sounds unrelated).
- Great secondary characters (good, bad and morally grey).
- Not too graphic until the actual evidence reveals.
- Many clues.
- Mild romance subplot.
- Actually appropriate for the YA genre.
Spoilers Ahead!
Few things that called my attention:
The protagonist was solving the case of a murdered mean girl - The chapters that were novel-like had quite a few lyrical descriptions which I loved.
- The everyday life wasn’t left behind in the storytelling.
- Also, the fact that it changed between narrative prose and log entries made it go by so fast, plus not redundant ;)
Moreover:
~ I do hope that as children Pip and Josh gave Barney purple hair.
~ Starving Cara with Spanish words sprinkled in her sentences was completely necessary to my reading experience. Thank you. *not sarcasm*
Weird details:
~ The physical description of Andie matched the author’s photo, idk if it was intentional but it did weird me out everytime the book flipped open on it.
~ Totally unrelated to the story: the book came with two dust jackets, exactly the same (I think? I should probably check). It was like Barnes and Nobles knew I would need space for a murder board if I had actually pushed throught with it, still I don’t think I would’ve guessed it.
As a closing/overall thoughts:
I did quite enjoy the book, even if it wasn't totally my sort of book. It was definitely that change in genre I was hoping for when I bought it. Not much was too mindblowing, when the reveals came, I was like “That makes total sense!” and I did remember all the details that led to it which I was proud about. It was pretty straight-forward and it did guide through the whole plot.
On another note, I’m glad the second book is about a new mystery, and I really hope it doesn’t relate to this one so that if I read it time after I will still be able to enjoy it without remembering everything that happened in the first book. It’s interesting for a series for the plot to not be totally connected, but it does have a settled main character to guide you through the plot details. I feel like it would be cool if in the second or third book the person in question was still alive and found alive, just for a change.
~ Celeste
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Drug abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Rape, Body shaming, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, and Vomit