Series Review: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
I’ve been working on this review for a while now. After reading A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, or AGGGTM for short, I was hooked. I quickly knew I was going to read the entire series, so might as well review them all together.
AGGGTM follows Pip, a high school student in a small town in Connecticut. For her senior year thesis project, Pip decides to investigate a supposedly open-and-shut murder case that took place in her town of Fairview. The book is full of twists and surprises as Pip tries to uncover the truth of what happened the night of April 18, 2014.
The story was well-crafted and kept me on my toes; Every clue led to a dozen more, with plenty of new suspects and motives. AGGGTM is not a traditional murder mystery like an Agatha Christie novel. You don’t get all the information you need and there are some unrealistic coincidences to drive the plot, so don’t expect to solve the mystery as you read. Just enjoy the journey, as Pip unfolds the mysteries of her town’s tragedy.
The other books in the series are listed below in the order they were released
- AGGTM
- Good Girl, Bad Blood (Sequel)
- Killjoy (Prequel)
- As Good As Dead (Threequel?)
Each book builds on the previous one and follows the same sort of murder mystery concept. The great thing about the series is you can stop after any book if it isn’t for you. Each book stands alone and doesn’t have any loose-ends. Still, I would recommend each one of them, as Pip goes through a lot of character growth between each book. While AGGGTM was slightly too immature for me as it is a young adult novel, the characters and themes in the sequels do mature, giving the series more depth and profoundness.
To recap, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is more than just a puzzle like other murder mysteries. The characters and context make it a quirky, thrilling, and hard-to-put-down story. I would suggest everyone give it a try, and if you end up enjoying it, the sequels won’t disappoint!
Let me know if you end up reading AGGGTM or have read it. I’d love to hear your reaction to the ending. Happy Reading!
