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A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder Book Review
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is the first book within a trilogy written by Holly Jackson, originally published 2nd May 2019. This is a young adult, fiction mystery set in a small town just outside of London which follows a student along her journey of her unique school project. Solving a murder. This book has gained significant attention on social media since its release, with no signs of the hype dying down.
Storyline/ plot
This book follows a young, curious, determined Pip, as she begins to complete an important school project.. The aspiring journalist decides to use the Murder of Andie Bell (a deceased teenager from her town) as the focal point of the project.
The murder of Andie Bell is a case deemed to be solved, the murderer being Sal Singh, Andie’s boyfriend, who sadly commit suicide during the investigation. But, with the body of Andie never actually being found and the character references of Sal being the opposite from any murderous traits, Pip isn’t so sure that Sal committed this crime.
Over the last few weeks of the summer Pip decides to delve into the hidden world of Andie Bell, interviewing old friends, attempting to speak to family and discovering Andie’s deepest secrets. Pip decides to keep an open mind and an unbiased opinion, making even some of her closest friends, her prime suspects.
Pip acquires a helper/ partner in crime along the way of course, all good detectives have a sidekick, with Ravi Singh having just as much attachment to this case as Pip, the case that took his brother’s life.
Together, Pip and Rvi leave no stone unturned, revealing more about Andie and her friends than they ever anticipated from alcohol, parties and silly fallouts to selling drugs and potential secret relationships.
Will Pip and Ravi be able to finally get justice for Andie and Sal, or will Pip find herself getting dangerously tangled into the case, leaving her to be a potential next victim?
Writing style
Holly Jackson took a standard small town friendship, added some mystery, and created one of the most popular young adult books of the last few years. It is nice for a young adult novel to actually have the feeling of a young adult, it does carry brief mentions of things like drug use, naked photos, but for the most part the writing is clean and perfect for a younger teen. The mystery side of the book is deep enough to hold interest of a younger audience but not complicated or overly graphic so it can appeal to a wide rage of ages.
Pros/ cons
I Would personally say the cons of this book are the pacing and some of the side characters. I personally found the story as a whole quite slow, and found that a lot of the same details were being repeated multiple times. A couple of the side characters I just felt were unnecessary at points and for me, didn’t really add much. The pros are the plot line in itself I found to be really interesting, i understood what was happening well and the friendship of Pip and Ravi was a nice sub plot to have aside from the mystery.
Conclusion
Overall I gave this book three stars, it was a nice read, an interesting mystery with unpredictable plot twists. It kept my attention better than most young adult mysteries, but the over-repetition of certain aspects really put me off some parts of the books, as well as some of the side characters. I Would recommend this to any young teen who is maybe looking at getting into reading as a whole or maybe just looking for a break from their typical