Review by solcatcat - A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

solcatcat 's review for:

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

4.0

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

CW: references to SA, overdrinking/partying, racism

One sentence review: If you like Pretty Little Liars, you will like this book.

Overall I had a great time reading this book. There were parts that were thrilling, suspenseful, and made my heart rate increase which was fun. It was an easy read that you could follow along for the ride and watch the mystery unfold.

Things made sense for the most part, with the exception of a few pieces of dialogue or plot that seemed silly. For instance, there is a line “This is the only way to clear [character]’s name”. And I thought to myself, is it really the ONLY way? Seems like you just have to think a little bit harder and I’m sure you could find AT LEAST one more way to clear their name. Sure enough, one chapter later, the same character says “There is another way to prove [character]’s innocence”.... See? Not that hard. No need to use all-or-nothing thinking. It wasn’t that big of a deal to take me out of the book completely, but it is one of those things where it’s like, why have the character say something like that only to go back on it one chapter later? Seems silly.

My second gripe with this book is the lack of believability of the parents in this book. All of the parents we see in this book who have dialogue are very silly/jokey parents, very buddy buddy with the children, ha-ha we’re cool with the kids kind of parents. Which is a personal pet peeve of mine. I’m not saying these parents don’t exist. I just don’t see as believable for ALL parents to act that way. Also one of the parents is deliberately pointed out to be non-American (by culture, not by citizenship). The way she portrayed this character makes me feel like she doesn’t have much experience with non-American/immigrant parents. Another set of parents who are deliberately non-American aren’t even shown in the book until the end. Again, I think this author may just not have that much experience with non-American cultured persons (and may not want to represent these characters without that experience), but still wanted to present a diverse and believable environment. I appreciate the natural diversity and don’t want to fault her for it, it’s just silly to see non-American persons represented in a very Western/American way.

Content Warnings