A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – Holly Jackson

All I have to say about this story is that Holly Jackson had me guessing the entire time.

And applause, applause, applause!! This was one of the best murder mystery books that I’d read in a long time. So move over Nancy Drew, and make way for the new best girl detective I’ve read about yet.

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So far one of my favorite books I read this year. I was absolutely hooked from the beginning and couldn’t wait to find out how it ended. This is definitely a “bingeable” book that you can probably read in a day or two (or in a couple of hours with pizza near your side if it were me). It is a Young Adult book but I think anyone would enjoy it because of the mystery aspect. By the way, I’d like to add some possible side effects for this book if you dare to read it: a maddeningly heartfelt desire to turn the pages, a heartbeat like a runner in an avalanche, and a long contemplation of “what in Dante’s inferno just happened?” I personally was captivated by the amount of emotional intensity, plot twists, and overall characterization of this absolutely luscious novel.

Everyone in Fairview knows the story of Andie Bell and Sal Singh. How she was killed by him in pure outright shock, and how he allegedly committed suicide after. But after Pip gets assigned a senior capstone project to complete, she decides to move right back onto this case. Why?

Something didn’t add up in the story, and she wants to find out who really did that murder and get the Singh family back to their former, better lives.

To be fair, I’m always in the mood for a good mystery novel, though I prefer the murder kind…
Give me a small group of suspects, secrets beneath everyone’s perfection, a tortuous emotional roller coaster, red herrings, and I’ll be in heaven (or as far there as I can go from my living room couch). I loved trying to be the detective along with Pip and piecing together the clues as she investigated and solved the problem of this case.

In order for a mystery to be successful to me, it needs to be so riveting, so thought provoking, so accentuated that there isn’t any room for me to place my thoughts out. Once my mind got going in this story, it did the most annoying thing possible- supplying me with arbitrary, unsolicited guesses, which I guess was a blessing in disguise since some of them were, inevitably, right. It’s best if I get so taken with the story that I only come out of semi-consciousness to turn the pages, and that’s exactly what this book made me do.

Pip makes for a great heroine, and I loved her intelligence, strength, quiet defiance, and her knack of seeing things that others ignored. Those features of hers really put that quote from Sherlock in a fix: “You see but do not observe.” A self-identified nerd, you can’t help but root for her. She also is very much 17 years old and a little naive to the ways of the world. So yeah, basically a female Sherlock Holmes but without the sociopath thing- she also very much has feelings for people and her dog (which I totally understand, since I’m not a heathen.)

Ravi is the younger brother of Sal Singh. He was the target of criticism, and was known as the brother of Andie Bell’s killer. Ravi knew his brother is innocent, and when Pip showed up at his door asking him a few questions, he thought it was a joke. But soon, with a help of muffins and some convincing, Ravi became Pip’s partner in crime, both looking for answers about his brother’s sudden death and his innocence in the case. I loved Ravi since he was such an amazing character- his development throughout the story was so nicely done, and he really opened up to Pip when he started to trust the feeling that she was sincere and real about this case.

Andie was an absolute wet towel, and it doesn’t surprise me much that bad things had happened to her. Everyone held her in such high regard, believing she was a good girl whose boyfriend murdered her but as I got along with the story, Andie didn’t actually hold true to the pretense she made so many people believe and fall in love with. Although I thought I would feel bad that she had died, I didn’t really. When you find out the truth about Andie Bell, what she did and didn’t do, you don’t feel any empathy for her.

Cara was Pip’s best friend, she was an okay-ish character, but even though her personality was quirky yet somewhat dry, her sister Naomi was a big twist of the story. She was one of Sal’s best friends and she kept a huge, mind altering secret that made Pip venture down extremely to the point of her and the family she thought she knew.

A Bonus Fact: I would now like to flex on the Spanish I’m learning at school, despite the fact that I don’t know how to hold an entire conversation with my teacher just yet. In case you don’t understand how bad I am in Spanish, I once froze when my teacher said hola to me. Instead of saying hola back, I responded with privyet (which in case you don’t know, is the Russian word for saying hello. My friend Nova taught it to me…)
Now for the fact!
(Bonus and unnecessary fact: Cara translates from Spanish to English as: ‘face’ and ‘expensive’. Unnecessary examples: Su cara es hermosa= her face is beautiful. La camisa es cara= the shirt is expensive.) 
Follow me for more unnecessary language classes, because unlike a bilingual therapist, my services are both educational and free of charge

I’ll admit, I wasn’t too keen on reading this book. I heard reviews about it from my friends which were great but I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that Pip would be picking a murder that was closed a while ago, and finding things that the police couldn’t. However, once it became clear that there were gaps in the police investigation that Pip was able to see, I was sold. Also, Pip’s approach to solving the case and getting people to talk about Andie and Sal, etc. helped solidify that this book was the real deal and not just about a kid who happens to luck into solving a crime. Jackson takes a multimodal approach to share Pip’s investigation; the narrative switches from the third person to interview recordings to pages in a diary to email exchanges, which kept it interesting and added an element of realism.

Generally, when I read books like this one, I end up shutting my brain off, because I know there’s going to be a plot twist. So why would I want to use my already depleting-at-an-alarming-rate brain cells? I know that the end the plot twist is gonna blow away your mind. However, this book was the highly unexpected kind of surprising one. My stomach was backflipping and somersaulting and ~looks at wikipedia for more gymnastic terms~ also tumbling and twisting from reading this mind boggling novel. I gotta say, even though a lot of people write murder mystery novels, few actually know how to make it the real deal and take the reader by surprise by sprinkling in all kinds of thematic elements and surprise.

“The people you love weren’t algebra: to be calculated, subtracted, or held at arm’s length across a decimal point.”

Pippa Fita-Amobi, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

It was a quick and light read, and I take back that I was late because of school: I would have finished it sooner if it weren’t for homework. It’s not that complicated to understand and the pages turn very quickly. Along with that, I don’t think I remember reading a book like this, with diary-like entries speaking in first person and then in third person. It was a bit strange, if I’m honest, and it took me a bit longer to adjust. However, it was an easy read in some respects. And, I don’t know if it’s because of the difference between British and American English, but there were phrases that I had to look up because I didn’t understand them a lot.

I would recommend this book to every single mystery young adult lover out there because it will undoubtedly make hearts skip beats. Even if you are not interested in young adult, I highly advocate giving it a try because it is unquestionably worth your time. If you have already read this book, I would suggest either “One of Us is Lying” by Karen M. McManus, which I read and finished a couple days ago, or “Good Girl, Bad Blood”, the sequel to AGGGTM. Both are fantastic mysteries that will devour your time in the most satisfying ways imaginable and you’ll love them both.

Thanks for reading this overly long and dramatic review. Say something if you’ve read any murder mysteries like this too, or if you just want to say hi! See you guys soon <3