A review by justagirlwithabook
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Overview:
Pippa (Pip) has decided to tackle a local open-and-close homicide case for her senior capstone project. The case involves a popular and pretty high school senior named Andie Bell who was allegedly murdered 5 years ago by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who later was also found dead, an apparent suicide and confessed murderer. But Andie's body was never found, and Pip has some questions. As her capstone project progresses, through countless interviews, research, and a little bit of "bending the ethical rules of investigative journalism," she teams up with Sal's brother, Ravi, and starts to untangle a very messy and destructive web of lies and deception.

The short of it:
What I loved: the fast pace, the format of the story (documents, capstone entries, etc.), the main character's intelligence and quick thinking, the 'whodunit' aspect

What I didn't love: a few plot points towards the end that were very disappointing (spoilers at the end), the lackadaisical characteristics of the main character's parents that weren't as fully believable/realistic

The longer version:
This is a classic 'whodunit' kind of twisty mystery that I love and was honestly very reminiscent to me of the Serial podcast's first season (though that being a TRUE story and significantly more complicated). It was very fast-paced and the format was a bit more unique, which I think added to the feeling of a fast plot. The story was told mostly through Pip's point of view via her capstone project entries (which included snippets of text messages, documents that Pip included throughout her investigation, and so forth). Every handful of chapters the POV would shift to a 3rd-person narrator to give us more insight as to Pip's actions and goings-on. I did have some disappointments in regard to a couple plot points which I have put at the very end (so you can choose to avoid or read through on your own). I realize some of my misgivings/disappointments are based on my own personal reading preferences and might not be of any concern to other readers at all.

Recommended for:
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is classified as a Young Adult Mystery/Thriller, and I would say it's most appropriate for maybe 8th grade and above. There is some more mature content related to the crime in individuals involved, but  the female lead herself is very much a straight-forward "good girl" - great grades, responsible, intelligent, etc.

Content Warnings:
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Grief, Drug use, and Death
Minor: Animal death, Vomit, Sexual assault, Self harm, Rape, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, and Cursing


SPOILERS:
I was hooked throughout the whole story but had some disappointments which I will include as spoilers here.
As an educator of over a decade, I hate seeing the classic teacher/student relationship tropes thrown into mysteries/thrillers as plot points. While yes, unfortunately predators do exist within the education field, their horrible lapses in judgment are not representative of all educators, especially men, who are often perceived within these stories as weak, vulnerable, and entirely susceptible to young, pretty female attention. I was hoping for a different outcome within this story and when it was discovered that a teacher had nefarious doings with Andie, my heart sunk. There were other ways this could've gone instead.

The second, even great disappointment, was the unnecessary death of the sweet Golden Retriever, Barney. I'm a Golden Retriever owner and dog lover, and I don't know why mystery/thrillers continue to insist that dogs must die in a story to make that story better; spoiler alert, it doesn't. If anything, it just makes me angry at the author for making that decision. Should I be more outraged about all the horrible things people were doing to other people in this story? Yes. But am I most appalled that Jackson killed off the dog? Yep. I am. Characters in stories are never fully innocent. Dogs are. Leave them be. Thank you.
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