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A review by brigwen
A Beginner's Guide to Murder by Rosalind Stopps
3.0
I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins Publishers to read and review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
For anyone considering picking up this book, please check your trigger warnings first. Some of those warnings include but are not limited to:
-murder
-hinted at but never fully explained child abuse
-sexual assault
-human trafficking
-drug abuse
-losing a child
-losing a loved one
-discrimination against POC
These can be some very troubling topics therefore please check your trigger warnings before diving into this book.
Three unlikely murders in the making. And by unlikely, I mean highly unlikely. Could you imagine your grandmother committing murder? Goodness knows I couldn't. My grandmother is too sweet and innocent but if I have learned anything from books and playing Cards Against Humanity with said grandma, you never underestimate the sweet and innocent ones. Same goes for smut books but that is for a different time.
Grace, Meg, and Daphne. Three unlikely friends. Three loners. Something that day pushed them to have coffee at that diner following their Pilates class. Three acquaintances having a cup of joe after a hard class. Nothing can go wrong, right? They were all up in age (between 70-80 years old). All have their own demons that they face every day. It isn't until a young, very distressed girl runs into the diner, begging for help. Without hesitation and for their own individual reasons, Grace, Meg, and Daphne immediately hide the girl away. It does not take long for them to understand why the girl is running and that they done the right thing. The Toad, as they affectionately start calling him, walks in, claiming that the young girl that our leading ladies are hiding, is his daughter and they had gotten into a spat. The three ladies stand their ground and state that they had not seen anyone run into the diner. The Toad leaves and it's then that our ladies decide to do whatever it takes to help the scared girl hiding in the bathroom.
It is upon arrival to Meg's house that the ladies find out just how much of a piece of shit the Toad is from Nina, our damsel in distress. This is where I must beg everyone that picks up this book to please check your trigger warnings. Nina was targeted. From the moment she met Shaz, her life became doomed. Even before then because these things can be very planned and detailed. Shaz sold her out and for what? How could someone do that to another person? Especially to someone so young and really had no family. Just when Nina's life was looking up and she was going to break the cycle of just being another messed up care kid, everything came crashing down around her and to no fault of her own. Unfortunately, someone else took it upon themselves to be in control of Nina's life and her body without her permission or even knowledge.
Our leading ladies are not all innocent either. Daphne has up close and personal dealings with something similar to what Nina is going through. As a POC, she felt blown away when the hottest guy on campus took an interest in her and wanted to be with her. What she did not know, is just how messed up this guy would be. And how no one would believe her when she tried to come forward. Sounds familiar, right? And beautiful Grace? She has a few skeletons in her closet as well. She will carry around the guilt, the "what if" for the rest of her life not only for her sweet daughter Ellie but for Dean and those two little girls. Could she have said or done something differently and maybe things would have ended differently.
And Meg? The most unlikely murderer of the group. Sweet, quiet, reserved Meg. One who had been told her whole married adult life that she would amount to nothing other than a failure. But beneath that sweet, soft, grandmotherly exterior is the heart of someone cold enough to do what she did. The biggest twist was not that our three leading ladies committed this heinous act. No, the biggest twist came at the end when it was finally revealed what Meg had been hiding the entire book.
While this book was good overall, there were times I had to fight to keep my interest in the book. The formatting was not what I was used to, and it seemed at times to be written in British English, such as "s" in "defense" was written as "c" as in "defence". There were other sayings throughout the book similar to this that I did not completely understand. Plus, full quotation marks were not used for speaking lines. I did not enjoy the formatting of this book. The other thing I did not enjoy was how the chapters switched character perspectives, which normally would not bother me as it allows you to understand more of what is going on. What bothered me was majority of the Meg chapters were in 1st person as well as Grace's, but the chapters told from Nina's and Daphne's were told in third person. I wish a consistent perspective would have benefited the book more.
For anyone considering picking up this book, please check your trigger warnings first. Some of those warnings include but are not limited to:
-murder
-hinted at but never fully explained child abuse
-sexual assault
-human trafficking
-drug abuse
-losing a child
-losing a loved one
-discrimination against POC
These can be some very troubling topics therefore please check your trigger warnings before diving into this book.
Three unlikely murders in the making. And by unlikely, I mean highly unlikely. Could you imagine your grandmother committing murder? Goodness knows I couldn't. My grandmother is too sweet and innocent but if I have learned anything from books and playing Cards Against Humanity with said grandma, you never underestimate the sweet and innocent ones. Same goes for smut books but that is for a different time.
Grace, Meg, and Daphne. Three unlikely friends. Three loners. Something that day pushed them to have coffee at that diner following their Pilates class. Three acquaintances having a cup of joe after a hard class. Nothing can go wrong, right? They were all up in age (between 70-80 years old). All have their own demons that they face every day. It isn't until a young, very distressed girl runs into the diner, begging for help. Without hesitation and for their own individual reasons, Grace, Meg, and Daphne immediately hide the girl away. It does not take long for them to understand why the girl is running and that they done the right thing. The Toad, as they affectionately start calling him, walks in, claiming that the young girl that our leading ladies are hiding, is his daughter and they had gotten into a spat. The three ladies stand their ground and state that they had not seen anyone run into the diner. The Toad leaves and it's then that our ladies decide to do whatever it takes to help the scared girl hiding in the bathroom.
It is upon arrival to Meg's house that the ladies find out just how much of a piece of shit the Toad is from Nina, our damsel in distress. This is where I must beg everyone that picks up this book to please check your trigger warnings. Nina was targeted. From the moment she met Shaz, her life became doomed. Even before then because these things can be very planned and detailed. Shaz sold her out and for what? How could someone do that to another person? Especially to someone so young and really had no family. Just when Nina's life was looking up and she was going to break the cycle of just being another messed up care kid, everything came crashing down around her and to no fault of her own. Unfortunately, someone else took it upon themselves to be in control of Nina's life and her body without her permission or even knowledge.
Our leading ladies are not all innocent either. Daphne has up close and personal dealings with something similar to what Nina is going through. As a POC, she felt blown away when the hottest guy on campus took an interest in her and wanted to be with her. What she did not know, is just how messed up this guy would be. And how no one would believe her when she tried to come forward. Sounds familiar, right? And beautiful Grace? She has a few skeletons in her closet as well. She will carry around the guilt, the "what if" for the rest of her life not only for her sweet daughter Ellie but for Dean and those two little girls. Could she have said or done something differently and maybe things would have ended differently.
And Meg? The most unlikely murderer of the group. Sweet, quiet, reserved Meg. One who had been told her whole married adult life that she would amount to nothing other than a failure. But beneath that sweet, soft, grandmotherly exterior is the heart of someone cold enough to do what she did. The biggest twist was not that our three leading ladies committed this heinous act. No, the biggest twist came at the end when it was finally revealed what Meg had been hiding the entire book.
While this book was good overall, there were times I had to fight to keep my interest in the book. The formatting was not what I was used to, and it seemed at times to be written in British English, such as "s" in "defense" was written as "c" as in "defence". There were other sayings throughout the book similar to this that I did not completely understand. Plus, full quotation marks were not used for speaking lines. I did not enjoy the formatting of this book. The other thing I did not enjoy was how the chapters switched character perspectives, which normally would not bother me as it allows you to understand more of what is going on. What bothered me was majority of the Meg chapters were in 1st person as well as Grace's, but the chapters told from Nina's and Daphne's were told in third person. I wish a consistent perspective would have benefited the book more.