Book Review - A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder & Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is a YA mystery, followed by Good Girl, Bad Blood which is a direct sequel.
This year, I found myself in the mood for YA murder mysteries, and when I heard of Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, I knew I had to pick it up. Before we get into the review, here’s a synopsis of Book 1;
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 book was pretty much exactly what I expected - a teenager solving a murder case the police have long forgotten about. The whole concept seems a little hard to believe as a whole, seeing a seventeen-year-old high school girl running around solving a murder – but it works. (The story gave me Jughead and Betty vibes, if you watch Riverdale you’ll know what I mean.) Jackson’s writing and world building enables the reader to believe that such a thing is possible. She includes realistic elements such as spider diagrams drawn by Pip, which is exactly how a high school student would go about sorting through facts without having access to police files, etc. and the use of social media to find evidence in the case is also brilliant and realistic.
However, there were certain elements of the story which I didn’t quite like, one being a not-so-subtle hint at a possible murder suspect which the author seemed to have just thrown in there, but the characters made no comment about whatsoever. *spoilers* This hint was HH, the letters found in Andie’s journal which led Pip and Sal to the Ivy House Hotel. The pair knew that Andie was seeing an older guy before she died, which gave them reason to believe that said ‘older guy’ killed Andie. This is all fine, UNTIL they go the Ivy House Hotel and meet an older guy called Henry Hill (!!!) who acts super shady and there is ZERO mention of him being HH for the rest of the book. Now I know this may seem like a tiny little thing, but it drove me crazy.
All in all, I really enjoyed the story. It was fast paced, and though I felt there were certain parts which needed a little tweaking, I liked the ending and gave this book 3/5 stars!
The sequel, however, was AMAZING. I was getting extremely strong Bughead vibes throughout, and it was obvious that Jackson’s writing has improved since the first book and Good Girl, Bad Blood was UNPUTDOWNABLE. Here’s a synopsis;
Pip Fitz-Amobi is not a detective anymore.
With the help of Ravi Singh, she released a true-crime podcast about the murder case they solved together last year. The podcast has gone viral, yet Pip insists her investigating days are behind her.
But she will have to break that promise when someone she knows goes missing. Jamie Reynolds has disappeared but the police won’t do anything about it. And if they won’t look for Jamie then Pip will, uncovering more of her town’s dark secrets along the way… and this time EVERYONE is listening.
Why the hell would a teenager be able to solve a mystery that the police either don’t care about, or have simply given up on? What I love about these books, is the fact that Jackson makes it possible and believable, that yes, a high school senior is indeed able to do these things. And she wrote the books and showed us how. I love the modern elements used by the author in this book such as using a FitBit to track Jamie’s steps and heartrate, allowing them to figure out where he was when he disappeared. The fact that Pip and Sal now have a podcast, their active use and mentioning of social media and comments is exactly what makes this book believable. If any teenager nowadays was to solve a mystery, it would have to be done using the internet and Jackson knows this, and used it to create something amazing.
The ending destroyed me. Seeing what Pip had to go through, and the injustice of the Max Hastings trial is so real. I don’t know if there will be a third book in the series, but if there is I am definitely excited to see how Pip deals with the trauma of what she’s been through, and I’d love to see her solve a mystery at Oxford.
Overall, the sequel gets a 5/5 stars from me!
