Having heard a lot about this book over the last few months, I thought I’d give it a go and WOW, I was not disappointed. This YA mystery, thriller was a page-turner and kept me hooked the whole time, it was a truly fantastic read.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Holly Jackson (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #1)
Themes: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller
Reading Format: Paperback
Pages: 433
5 STARS
Holly Jackson’s debut novel, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is unlike anything I have read before purely because of the way it made me feel. I was reaching for this book whenever I could, including waking up early to finish it. This is the definition of a page-turner, every chapter brought something new in the mystery that Pip is trying to solve, who killed Andie Bell? I genuinely had goosebumps for most of my time reading this book, it is what I would call an experience and I loved every second.
Pip is a very determined student and has chosen to do an extended project on Andie Bell and Sal Singh, Andie went missing over five years ago and after Sal killed himself, he was accused of her murder. But Pip wants to prove this isn’t what happened and that Sal is innocent. Pip is a very hard working young woman, putting time towards an application at Cambridge, her A Levels and solving a murder. The pacing of this book is fantastic, it flows at a realistic rate as Pip discovers new leads in the case. At certain realisations, I thought it wasn’t the best book to be reading alone late at night, but I still couldn’t put it down.
At times I suspected everyone and I did partially guess how this would end. But for the most of this book, it kept me guessing. Upon certain interviews with suspects, I thought I could see exactly where it was going and knew more than Pip, but then she surprised me and made the same assumption I had. I liked that I didn’t feel like I knew more than the main character, I was very much experiencing this with her rather than watching her go through it all.
Not only did this book not follow a predictable plot, but it was realistic in the relationships built up. I’m starting to really hate the typical plots like epic friends fall outs and misunderstood arguments ruining things for characters, but this book had none of this. I found the relationships and characterisation very believable and really enjoyed to read about it. I also really enjoyed that it was set in the UK, so I was familiar with the school system for once!
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder reminded me once more of why I love reading – the utterly gripping plot, characters and suspense kept me gripped and addicted to every page.
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