A review by _cozyreadercorner
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Didn’t know about this book prior to the announcement of BBC’s tv series adaptation and wanted to read the source material before deciding on watching it. Plus, just personally enjoy mystery crime genre: books, video essays, podcasts.

Our heroine Pippa (Pip) Fitz-Amobi has decided to cover Andrea (Andie) Bell’s murder case for her high school senior capstone project. Five years ago in the quiet town of Fairview, the news of popular student, Andie Bell, going missing was concluded as a murder committed by her then-boyfriend, Sal Singh, who sent a text message confession before committing suicide. Driven by a gut feeling that the story can’t be as simple as it seems — especially given what she remembered about Sal, Pip begins interrogating those who knew both parties and winds up gaining an unexpected partner-in-crime - Sal’s younger brother, Ravi Singh. What starts out as an intuition becomes an obsession as she delves deeper into and unveils details that the initial investigation missed. However, while she is gathering evidence and attempting to piece together the puzzle, she receives anonymous warnings and threats to stop her reinvestigation that places herself and her loved ones in danger.  

The plot is pretty fast-paced but easy to follow. Feels like playing a whodunnit guessing game alongside Pip as she discovers new findings and more secrets with her precocious detective skills🕵️‍♀️. The writing style is pretty interesting too, interspersing first-person pov of the Pip’s project logs (journal entries that contain her reflections, transcriptions/texts of people she talks to, diagrams she makes about her suspects) within the overall third-person pov narrative. And we get sucked into this sort of double life she lives: an amateur detective and regular high school teenager. The quality time she’s spending and conversations she’s having with her family and friends and the playful flirting with Ravi are nice pauses between all the heaviness and mental strain brought on by the case. 

But let me tell you, I was particularly stressed for her college apps, especially when she put off writing her personal essay for the case. Every time that happened, I was holding my head like “what are you doing girl?! do not ruin your chances to go to your dream school for this side quest!” i know time is of the essence with investigations, but priorities! It can at least wait until your essay is done since the senior project deadline was not anytime soon and did not even involve solving the case anyway. After all, it’s already waited five years. what’s another week or so? And with her being an overachiever (submitting homework early, doing all extra credit), I would’ve thought she’d want to have her essay written in case the anonymous villain did inflict any real harm (although logically I know Pip wouldn’t die). Perhaps this was to portray how unhealthily absorbed she was becoming - eventually even skipping school and taking several life-endangering risks just to get closer to the truth. But I digress… 

The ending was really well done - plot twist after plot twist involving both those on and off her suspect list. I really appreciate how it wasn’t so straightforward who was to blame and can’t point a finger at any one person (would actually require aiming fingers from both hands lol). There were a lot of people who failed these kids and played a part in everything that happened, so it was quite depressing and heartbreaking how things transpired the way they did (best put it: “shades of desperation”) but that just reflects how complex things are in reality. 

[SPOILERS]
  • started suspecting (Mr.) Elliot Ward as the “secret older guy” after Pip found that note in her locker and they bumped into each other (which he jokingly called “an assassination attempt” hm… interesting choice of words 🤔), then asked if she was being bullied after seeing the folded note (how would he know what’s written was threatening?)
  • when Elliot Ward was confessing to Pip, was viscerally disgusted by how he tried to justify all of his actions in a sorry attempt to gain pity 😒 about: 
    • his sexual relationship with Andie (a minor btw), saying it felt nice to receive attention 🤮 after the loneliness and grief from his wife dying. did he not remember that this girl was his daughter’s age?! how can he not set boundaries as a teacher? 
    • killing Sal because he needed a suspect in case Andie died from the head injury he inflicted on her and framing it as a choice between either Sal or his daughters going fatherless
  • every step of Ward’s precalculated murder plan was sick and twisted 
    • approaching Sal under the guise of comforting him as a reputable, caring teacher 
    • giving him pills to make him “feel better” (and the fact that it was Sal’s father’s pills 😢)
    • persuading him to kill himself so “police will no longer consider you a strong suspect” 
    • then resorting to coercing him to overdose and ultimately finishing it off with a plastic bag
    • the most gruesome details were of Sal’s last moments: Ward holding Sal’s hand until his last breath and describing the Yale campus so he “can die happy and peacefully” 🤢. not him trying to come off as an empathetic murderer — in itself an oxymoron and a fxcking joke bc who the fxck wants their murderer by their side as they’re dying?! 😨🤬
  • really thought Andie was still alive and hiding somewhere bc her abusive home situation sounded like something she wanted to run away from. so was shocked when finding out Ward had actually been hiding an Andie look-a-like 
    • this is where it gets complicated bc the fact that he convinced himself that girl was Andie and was “taking care of her” as a coping mechanism for his guilt does demonstrate remorse 
    • and given that he immediately admitted everything once Pip confronted him and showed no resistance when the police arrived to arrest him shows he had always been ready to surrender
  • surprised Becca was never on Pip’s list of suspects bc she was practically a blaring alarm when she was first introduced 🚨. the fact that she: 
    • had a somewhat hostile relationship with Andie, albeit the wedge was created and driven deeper bc of their parents (thought maybe she was jealous of her older sister?)
    • started to try to look more like her sister after she died (a sign of guilt? trying to replace her?) 
    • was the last person to see her sister before they caught the footage of Andie’s car (bc Becca can drive it too) 
  • can understand why Pip tried to take pity on Becca after figuring out it was her because Becca was a victim of her family’s toxic home environment and Max Hastings’ drugging and r*pe 
  • was quite out of character for Pip to drink Becca’s tea bc thought she would at least suspect Becca would spike it after seeing her “get a tissue” and knowing Becca killed her sister 🤦🏻‍♀️
  • despised Max Hastings deeply. just about everything was wrong with the guy.
    • spiking drinks at those calamity parties and then r*ping Becca 
    • keeping a nude pic of his best friend’s girlfriend 
    • convincing his friends to hop in his car while drunk driving and causing that hit-and-run 
    • how did Sal and Naomi become friends with him in the first place and why did they continue to be his friend? 
  • learning about how Andie Bell made other people’s lives miserable, it was no wonder she made a lot of enemies and the suspect list was so long. her: 
    • seducing Ward to get into Yale then threatening him when he demanded to stop
    • cyber bullying Nat da Silva thus causing irreparable trauma 
    • selling drugs to underage kids 
    • apathetic reaction to Becca being r*ped and then hurling those insults at her  
  • truly the only one who remained good in all of this was Sal, with everyone betraying his trust and taking his kindness for granted 
    • he wanted Andie, his then-girlfriend, to stop dealing drugs for her own good 
    • all of his closest friends lying and taking back his alibi on the night of the murder bc they were being blackmailed about their hit-and-run (which they should have been charged anyway) 
    • one of those friends, Max Hastings, was secretly enabling Andie by purchasing drugs from her
    • a teacher he respected and helped him get into Yale (not that that necessarily represents kindness) manipulated and killed him when he was in a vulnerable state due to Andie’s disappearance 

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