A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

Here are the consequences of watching booktube…

Themes: YA, mystery/thriller

The synopsis

The case is closed. Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it.

But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the murder, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn’t so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final year project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?

The review

I have been having this series on my radar for a while when I saw one of my favourite booktuber Jodie reading it during one of her vlogs. Since she read it along Perfectpaperbacks, I had two booktubers with similar tastes to mine telling me how much this series was good. So, I obviously ended up buying the first book (and my wonderful mother bought me the second one, we love family support 💜). And I ended up reading it in one day…

This accomplishment was helped by the writing which remains YA and by the use of mixed media. Since there are transcripts from interviews, extracts from an agenda and so on, I was doing my investigation along with Pip and did not see the chapters passing by. I also found that the mystery is quite complex for a YA book: you end up suspecting everything and everyone until you are not sure about anything anymore. Hence, you finish this book having partially solved the mystery but still being surprised by the resolution (at least in my case). Pip reminded me a bit of Stevie from Truly Devious but I preferred the former because of both her humour and social skills, making the resolution more logical (how do you want to make people talk to you if you do not have any social competencies?).

The only two complaints I could make are the setting and one of the tropes used. I was very confused with the setting since I could not say if the action was taking place in the UK or in the USA. To be honest, the town and everyday life described could fit both countries. Then, I hate when authors are making characters who are supposed to be very clever do something stupid and dangerous while they have received threats, as Pip is doing one or two times. But these two things did not alter my pleasure in reading this book at all!

In brief: this was a very good mystery, very bingeable with the perfect tense atmosphere I was expecting for a thriller. I will dive into the sequel as soon as my messy TBR allows me!

My rating: 4.5/5