Reviews tagging Pedophilia

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, by Holly Jackson

75 reviews

katherinek's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was really giving me Pretty Little Liars vibes! The plot was well done and there was so much depth to it, but I wish the author would've devoted just as much energy to shaping the main characters. Most of them lacked depth for me, including Pip who just seemed like another "I'm not like other girls" type of character--that is, until the last 50 pages or so, where she became a lot more dynamic for me. The college application part of the plot fell pretty flat for me personally, as well as the "threats" she was getting, which never really seemed that important until

Spoiler

Barney died...which, in my opinion, wasn't necessary.

When it comes to the writing, there were definitely some cheesy parts but also some really pretty lines

Spoiler

For instance, Pip getting drugged was written so well, I felt like I was really experiencing it!

. There is a LOT of information given to you in this book, and the author helps you keep track of it with the reports and suspect list that Pip has at the end of all of them. I really appreciated the map at the beginning and I wish we could've had more visual aids like that one

Spoiler

I really wanted to see the murder board that Pip and Ravi made in part three, for example

. All of this information really started to pile up for me and got so messy to the point where I kept forgetting things and getting confused, and because of that, the ending was pretty underwhelming because I was learning so much at one time and I just couldn't keep up with everything at that point.

Spoiler

Also, why did Pip magically realize that it was Elliot and that he was keeping Andie in the house? In my opinion she didn't have nearly enough evidence for this and jumped to that conclusion VERY fast

Despite being kind of unrealistic, the ending was written pretty well. I liked how Pip called out the press for making Andie seem like a good person, when she was actually pretty awful.

Spoiler

Also, am I the only one who was convinced that Andie was still alive and behind all of this for like 90% of the book?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Drug use, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Blood, Bullying, Drug abuse, Injury/injury detail, Kidnapping, and Rape

samanthamurk's review

adventurous emotional mysterious sad

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

WOW i’m in total shock from the ending. such a good read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Pedophilia, Kidnapping, Grief, Drug use, Death, Child death, Injury/injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Murder, Child abuse, and Blood

Moderate: Bullying and Misogyny

tinygoldfox's review

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Vomit, Sexual assault, Animal death, and Kidnapping

Minor: Self harm, Sexism, Pedophilia, and Racism

lsmith19's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

I loved every second of this book!!!

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Content Warnings

Minor: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Murder, Pedophilia, Stalking, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Grief, Sexual harassment, Bullying, Addiction, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Animal death, and Death

holliesatchell's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal death, Child death, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Rape, Stalking, Injury/injury detail, Mental illness, Racism, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Car accident, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, Self harm, Vomit, Body shaming, Bullying, Drug use, Murder, Pedophilia, Toxic friendship, and Death of parent

minke's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Vomit, and Death of parent

Minor: Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Dementia, Body shaming, and Confinement

nickoliver's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I've been in a bit of a reading slump recently, with none of my current reads interesting me. So I decided to start a new book that I was pretty much in the mood for, and it was definitely a good decision, because I really enjoyed it!

I was intrigued from the start. The chapters were really short and had an interesting format - they had interview transcripts and diary-like entries sprinkled in regularly -, which made me not want to put the book down (even though I did; it took me almost a week to finish it, but that was mostly due to the aforementioned reading slump). I also found the story surprisingly funny, though more in the first half than the latter. Pip and some of the side characters were amusing and lightened up the mystery sometimes. They had great banter, and I would've liked to see more of it. The mystery itself had me hooked, though I did not particularly enjoy the eventual murder reveal.

Spoiler

I am quite honestly tired of having to read YA thrillers where the murderer was a father who had sex with a teenager and then scrambled to cover it up.

And I feel like you do have to suspend your disbelief a little at times.

There were some other things that made me dock 0.5 stars, too. First of all, it got a bit annoying that none of Pip's friends - at most Cara, but not even her much - were fleshed out. They'd be mentioned every once in a while, but never to a big extent. Sometimes, one of them would try and talk to Pip about something that was going on in their lives - like Cara's love life, for example -, but because you'd never heard about it before, it was just weird and unnecessary. The book could've done well to develop side characters a bit better.

Pip could be a bit of a challenging protagonist in the first place. I really liked her for the most part, but the lengths she went to for her capstone project were insane and unhinged. She'd blackmail, break into places, contact people she wasn't allowed to contact - and while I know she investigated the murder out of genuine interest and not just because she needed a topic for the project, I never understood how she planned on eventually writing the assignment. Was she going to mention all the illegal shit she'd been up to? And if not, how was she going to convey everything she wanted to say? That was also not really mentioned at any point, so I was just constantly astounded and confused.

I also have to say I didn't particularly like that she and Ravi ended up together, just based on the fact that she was a seventeen-year-old girl and he was mentioned very early on to be twenty. Did that make anyone else uncomfortable, or is it just me? Especially considering the topic of part of the plot, I found it weird that Jackson acted as if this was in any way normal.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal death, Grief, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Bullying, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Sexual assault, Alcohol, Death of parent, Racism, and Rape

Minor: Dementia, Car accident, and Self harm

bddiana's review

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Bullying, Drug abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Grief, and Sexual violence

Minor: Self harm

arys_library's review against another edition

adventurous emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I absolutely LOVED this book! I went into this with low expectations because I see so many people posting about how amazing this book is, I didn't want to be let down. But this book definitely lived up to the hype! It was such a gripping y/a thriller, the characters were so interesting, and everything flowed together so smoothly. Throughout the entire book, I was creating different theories in my head as to what the ending could be and even though some parts were right, the ending was still so surprising! It was pretty diverse which is something I always look for when reviewing books. I don't have any negative thoughts about diversity. It was genuinely amazing! I think the only negative thing I have to say about the book is the similarities to other works. The TV show Pretty Little Liars has the main character Allie, and our main character Andie is exactly like her. Seems perfect until you get to know her and realize she is a bully and will do whatever she can to be popular and loved. There was one quote in this book by Andie's friend that reminded me so much of a quote from the show, it was hard to read this without thinking of it. Even then, it could be a stretch on my behalf, and the similarities are just coincidences. However, the second similarity I think is so specific that it's hard to believe it is a coincidence. SPOILER COMING          SPOILER HERE

Spoiler

The scene takes place in the book where max and his friends tell Pip about the night he and his friends hit someone with their car. They were drunk and drove home under the influence and hit a man who came out of nowhere on an empty and isolated road. They thought he was dead and decided to leave him there, with Max angrily trying to convince everyone to lie. But someone happened to see the incident and begin to blackmail them because of it. That EXACT scene happens in the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer, down to the angry guy being the most responsible, and telling everyone to cover up what they did

These similarities are so specific that I have a hard time thinking that this book was 100% the author's original idea. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Suicide

Moderate: Infidelity, Alcohol, Drug use, Blood, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Cursing, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Sexual harassment, and Animal death

laurenpunch_'s review

mysterious fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, and Injury/injury detail