Good Girl, Bad Blood – Holly Jackson

And here we have the SEQUEL (technically the second book of the AGGGTM trilogy) of a book that I thought was a perfectly planned murder mystery. Ah well.

Trigger Warning (for this book): sexual assault, murder

Sometimes when I read a book and it completely blows the expectations I had about it precursor to reading it out of the water- sometimes I wonder if I’m delusional. This first book and the second book had that effect on me. It was just too sharp and too unforgettable that I couldn’t put it down even when I was at the nearest Harris Teeter with my family and pushed the cart I was manning into a table with a bread pyramid.

You heard me. A BREAD pyramid. (i couldn’t show my face there again, which is why i’m proud to say i usually go to other farmers’ markets to do shopping…)

One of my favorite things about this series and specifically this book is the way the investigation unfolds. Clues are collected and followed up, which then leads to the next set of steps and clues. It’s all very logical and Pip is able to record everything in a way that her data won’t be damaged. The way this investigation was unraveled made me feel like I was actually there at the scene, working with Pip and Ravi to find the perpetrator.

In the initial book, I loved learning about Pip as a character. Meeting a girl who was willing to go outside of her comfort zone and risk everything in the name of truth and justice- that’s my type of person. Like honestly I can’t even imagine what it would be like to solve a murder mystery just because of a research topic I picked to solve. She did kind of have that coming though; after all, it WAS a murder case she was trying to prove was wrong.

Anyways, let’s go to relationship goals!! Pip and Ravi time..

With the help of our beautiful love interest, Ravi (jeez he sounds kinda great by the description that Holly Jackson gave him), Pip made a true-crime sorta podcast and basically blew up. I personally loved how Ravi was thinking about a good title for the podcast Pip was trying to make and gave the name of the first book in the series (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder), which Pip didn’t originally like but then she relented to it, secretly in the senses that it DID fit her perfectly.

Even when Ravi helped Pip to figure out what happened in the first book (Andie Bell Murder Case), he wasn’t pushy or aggressive at all since he knew Pip was still struggling to fight the invisible yet relentless demons that came out of the somewhat-PTSD outcome of the end of book 1. Which is another point why book boys are seriously rated higher than most real teen boys here. Honestly if I wasn’t such a bookaholic, maybe I’d set my standards for actually decent male specimens but except for a select few, that would be like the bar hitting rock bottom and then being given a shovel to dig with.

Pip sighed; Ravi liked anyone who fed him.

Good Girl, Bad Blood – Holly Jackson

Honestly Pip was better here because she started to let down her façade of being the goodest boi- though she has this whole dfining moment where she’s like maybe i’m selfish, maybe I’m a liar and maybe I’m reckless and obsessive and I’m OK with doing bad things when it’s me doing them and maybe I’m a hypocrite, and maybe none of that is good, but it feels like me….

Like… okay then. I mean, pop off I guess?

From what I can tell of poor, lost, misguided past me’s sad remade exorcised caricature of a review, I might have been disappointed that I didn’t see as much innocent and almost playful voicing present through the most of the first book. Though it was still in the same book, I’m glad it wasn’t there a LOt, since I was getting a little tired (but still content) of listening to the ✨let’s go find a murderer!✨ vibes that this book shed like snakeskin.

Though admittedly it didn’t have a lot of murder mystery as it did with MISSING people stuff and whatnot (god i really need to consult a thesaurus), I still found myself reading a library copy of it between classes & sometimes while my teachers were giving lectures. I might have had a problem, but at least it wasn’t with this book.

Even when I knew some of the plot twists (courtesy of my friend who i specifically told NOT to do so), I liked reading about the little hints, the podcasted sections, and how plotlines and story concepts were ‘borrowed’ from book 1 and woven into the essence of this book. Also almost all of the scenes in this book were super vital for this book mystery to work flawlessly. The only thing that I thought could’ve used some more of is the friendship Pip and Cara had. For the most part, it was introduced in the beginning fairly well, but mentions of it fluctuated irregularly throughout the book- as if their friendship only really mattered in the first book but as soon as the mystery was solved, they decided that they wanted to go separate ways.

Annnnd Lauren. I was super agitated with her character development. First of all, you’d assume that because she’s one of Pip’s best friends, she’d be on her side for fully supporting the case she’s trying to solve?? no. She and Ant (another one of Pip’s supposedly great friends) just stared at each other for the most part like 2 hummingbirds who were in lovesick paranoia despite being extremely close to each other. In fact, it got to the part where Lauren was completely influenced in thinking that the investigation was a joke… like whose side are you on??

But for the most part, I liked this book. Despite the shortcomings that could’ve made this a five star, I think it was well written, and that Holly Jackson can capture my heart with her writing style and brutally honest set of triggers that come after something traumatizing (that part being the mystery solved in book 1..)

Anyways.

It was fast paced, intense, gripping and incredibly entertaining. Holly Jackson writes in a way that is incredibly easy to read and equally easy to fall into the ‘just one more chapter’ trap. And yeah, I would recommend it and the first book to people who like crime fiction/thriller novels- it’s not a bad book. Admittedly it was lacking an aspect I would’ve loved to see, given that the first book had a touch of sweetness mixed in with the crime of alleged murder- I’d still give it maybe 3.5 ish stars.

Thanks for reading! Share your thoughts on this book in the comments <3