Book Review: "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder" by Holly Jackson
“A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” by Holly Jackson
Synopsis: Everyone in Fairview knows the story.
Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.
But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?
Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.
This is the story of an investigation turned obsession, full of twists and turns and with an ending you'll never expect. - Delacorte Press
Rating (out of 5): 3.75
Trigger Warnings: statutory rape, murder, drug use, meddling kids
Review: For several years, I held the Accelerated Reader points record for my lower school, and I genuinely attribute a good deal of that to the fact that all the Nancy Drew books were 5 points each. I loved Nancy and her plucky adventures, and I read the full series — so when I say that Pip reminds me of a modern-day Nancy Drew, I mean that as high praise.
I don’t read a ton of murder mysteries (I consider that more Moira’s ambit), but I couldn’t resist the description of this one when I saw it on Book of the Month in February. I love a good “smart girl takes on the world” narrative, and I was intrigued by the true crime bent to this trope. Pip is an over-achieving high-school student who decides to take on the murder that rocked her quiet town years before.
Andie Bell, post-death golden girl, was murdered by her boyfriend during their senior year of high school, and then, wracked by guilt, Sal committed suicide a few days later. Or so everyone thinks. As her senior capstone project, Pip decides to solve the murder; she immerses herself in Andie’s life, getting to know everyone that might know something about what really happened. Of course, there are unseen plot twists, and I’m not going to get into that here because I don’t want to give away anything, but I do want to commend the author for drawing such a dynamic cast of characters. In the spirit of Checkov’s gun, no one was extraneous; while it was a large group of people, it wasn’t unmanageable to remember who everyone was in the context of Andie and Sal.
Books like this always make me feel like I had a boring high school experience — yes, there was drinking and drug use, but there wasn’t blackmail and murder, crimes and misdemeanors (at least that I’m aware of — I wasn’t a popularity queen). It read almost like a CW teen soap, but sometimes, we all need that. And honestly, if coronavirus quarantine isn’t that time, I’m not sure what is.
Yes, yes, we are spoiler free over here, but I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Pip solved a murder (and several ancillary crimes tbh) during the course of the book. The last 50 pages were a wild ride as she figured everything out, and I found myself genuinely anxious for Pip’s well-being as she got closer and closer to the guilty party.
I hesitate to call this an epistolary novel, but it also isn’t fully narrative. If anything, it’s “mixed media” — the story is told in a variety of formats, including Pip’s research journal, text transcripts, secondary sources, and normal narration. I didn’t mind this as it was well-done, but I did want to flag it in case that isn’t your favorite. One thing that I could have done without? The final “Two Months Later” chapter — I didn’t need to see everything all wrapped up in a neat bow; it felt like a cheap ending to a clever book. Especially now that I know this is part of a series. I wish she had ended it on a cliffhanger.
TL;DR: A quick and clever murder mystery with likable characters and some unseen plot twists. If you’re having a hard time focusing on books right now, this might be just the book to engage and entertain.
If You Liked this, Try These:
“The Conspiracy of Us” by Maggie Hall (another one of my quarantine reads!)
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