A review by miak2
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

 
"You go around asking dangerous questions, girl. You're going to find some dangerous answers."


This book started off so strongly for me and then lost steam by the time it got to the climax. Or, to put it another way, I think Jackson excelled at weaving an interesting mystery but not so much in wrapping it up.

But let me start with the pros. I loved the audiobook format, it really took advantage of the interviews that Pippa conducted. As I mentioned earlier, I thought that the mystery Jackson created was a really interesting one. There were lots of shady characters, and every bit of new information had me (and Pippa) re-thinking all my theories. For the most part, Pippa was an intelligent main character. She was excellent at connecting the dots and didn't gloss over any obvious suspects. I feel like I knew her quite well by the end of the series. Which...brings me to my next point.

I didn't really like Pippa. Now, I recognize that just disliking a character isn't grounds for disliking a book. Characters can, and should, make choices that are different than the ones I would make. But so many of her choices were brazenly reckless and selfish that it made it increasingly hard to root for her. I mean, the prologue has her teacher explicitly telling her not to contact either of the families, and then she goes and does just that in the first few chapters (and faces no repercussions). Not to mention the actually illegal and dangerous things that she got into. And, more unforgivably, I felt like Jackson fell into the habit of making Pippa stupid when she needed her to be. Clearly, she's an incredibly intelligent girl, but then she'd make dumb, out-of-character choices when it was needed for the plot to progress.

I wasn't dissatisfied with the ending. Rather, I was just...fine with it. It was okay. It didn't live up to the intriguing mystery that had been built up to that point. And maybe this is just an issue I have with most thrillers - either the 'whodunnit' is too obvious or too obscure. I won't say any more than this: I felt like Jackson's reveal had a bit of both going on. 
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