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A review by savvyrosereads
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-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? Yes
3.0
Rating: 3/5 stars
Pip decides to investigate the closed murder case of local teenager Andie Bell as part of her senior capstone project.
This isn’t a bad book. It probably doesn’t bode well that I have to preface my review that way, but so be it. I have a lot of friends who have really enjoyed this one, and I think the positives are there: it’s pretty fast-paced with short chapters, there are some fun twists, and the signposting for readers to figure out the mystery is mostly there. It’s predictable, but *mostly* the fun kind of predictable where you can guess what’s coming and feel like a detective.
That said, there’s a major incident about two-thirds of the way through that lost me entirely because of how unnecessarily gruesome, cruel, and triggering it was, and to be honest it ruined the book for me. I also felt like towards the ending there was a lot of emotional manipulation—the book got VERY dark (particularly for a YA thriller!) and not in a way that served the plot (in my opinion).
Finally, I’ll be honest: I didn’t like the FMC, Pip, and honestly found her pretty insufferable throughout. I did love Ravi, but he was pretty much the only good character, and didn’t get nearly enough page time.
Overall, I’ll probably continue the series because of who I am as a person, but this book was, as I believe the kids say, mid.
CW: Murder/death/violence; animal death; sexual assault/statutory rape; death of parent; emotional abuse; mentions of suicide; drug use; racism
Pip decides to investigate the closed murder case of local teenager Andie Bell as part of her senior capstone project.
This isn’t a bad book. It probably doesn’t bode well that I have to preface my review that way, but so be it. I have a lot of friends who have really enjoyed this one, and I think the positives are there: it’s pretty fast-paced with short chapters, there are some fun twists, and the signposting for readers to figure out the mystery is mostly there. It’s predictable, but *mostly* the fun kind of predictable where you can guess what’s coming and feel like a detective.
That said, there’s a major incident about two-thirds of the way through that lost me entirely because of how unnecessarily gruesome, cruel, and triggering it was, and to be honest it ruined the book for me. I also felt like towards the ending there was a lot of emotional manipulation—the book got VERY dark (particularly for a YA thriller!) and not in a way that served the plot (in my opinion).
Finally, I’ll be honest: I didn’t like the FMC, Pip, and honestly found her pretty insufferable throughout. I did love Ravi, but he was pretty much the only good character, and didn’t get nearly enough page time.
Overall, I’ll probably continue the series because of who I am as a person, but this book was, as I believe the kids say, mid.
CW: Murder/death/violence; animal death; sexual assault/statutory rape; death of parent; emotional abuse; mentions of suicide; drug use; racism
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, and Murder
Moderate: Death of parent