A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson Book Review

Hello everyone it’s Zainab here, welcome or welcome back to my blog! I’ve recently finished A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder and thoroughly enjoyed it, alongside so many other people who have spoken highly about it. So today, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the book as it’s so popular and I know so many people who have read it. Let’s jump into it!

Official Reviews

A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder was subject to some highly positive reviews! It has an average reader rating of 4.4/5 stars on Goodreads and on The Works it has an average of 4.9/5 stars. On Common Sense Media, the average was a full star 5/5 rating!

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?

My Opinion

Since A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder had been widely circulating social media and had a majority of positive reviews – my expectations were quite high going into it. Almost so much so that I didn’t think it would be as great as people say because readers over exaggerate it. But, I an confirm that this book is definitely worth the hype for me. The plot and mystery were so beautifully crafted by the author where readers were forced to be the detective just as much as the main protagonist, Pippa. And I love this aspect of mystery stories. It makes this book so much more compelling as you’re in her shoes and even you have the significance to solve the mystery.

Furthering this point, creating the whole mystery alongside the rest of the plot’s book must have been very difficult – so to do it well was incredible! I loved how you would think the story was going one way but it would take a complete change of direction in the next page. And that made for the story to be such an amazing read!

There’s one aspect of this book that I really think sets it apart from other teen mysteries which is the layout! I know that’s something a bit out of the ordinary to praise in any book, but if you pick it up, you’ll see what I mean. Every other chapter or so, is filled with a log in which Pippa notes down all the key things that she’s learned from the past few chapters. With each one leading towards the end, as she produces her final project and realises who the culprit is. Again, this links back to the idea about playing ‘detective’ I really enjoy books that also take into account the reader experience, and make them feel much more involved – and in particular I think this was executed really well in this book.

A huge factor within the plot of this book is resilience and believing in others.When Pippa took on the case, she had almost everyone around her discouraging her and telling her not persue it. Despite this, she kept on going and eventually did bring new things alight about this case. I think this is a great message to the young readers that if you’re passionate about something – it’s important that you don’t give up! I love how this book may be a mystery, but some of it’s underlining values are so vital.

Taking a chance and believing in others is also hugely explored. Pippa begins her case by meeting the alleged murderer’s brother: Ravi. Her entire town has excluded and shunned them out without letting them say anything for themselves. Yet, Pippa still chooses to believe Ravi and help him with her brother, and Ravi takes a chance on helping Pippa even though he didn’t know who she was. The whole subplot was their finding their mutual trust for one another and sometimes it was a nice break from a brutal murder investigation!

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it’s one of the best teen mysteries I’ve read in a while! I’d highly recommend to anyone looking for a good book to get lost in.

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Thank you so much for reading this post, I really enjoyed reminiscing about this! Let me know in the comments what your thoughts were on the book.

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