A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder ~ Holly Jackson
A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson follows ardent student Pippa who is currently studying for her A-Levels. Aspiring for Cambridge University, Pippa decides to take on an EPQ alongside her other subjects. Five years ago their quaint town was struck by tragedy. A missing girl. The suicide of the potentially guilty boyfriend. Pippa is convinced that Sal Singh the boy everyone thinks that killed his girlfriend Andie Bell is innocent and is using her EPQ to find the truth. As the story unravels so do the hidden secrets of their town. Secrets many have tried their hardest to keep hidden for the past five years. Will she figure out who the real killer is or just prove that Sal was guilty all along?
Having attempted an EPQ myself in my final year of college this book really intrigued me. I was taken in from the beginning loving the change of narrative from third person chapters to the production logs and interview transcripts. At first, I thought it may disrupt the flow of the book but it only fortified the storyline. Having the production logs throughout made all the intertwining information/stories easier to decipher, for me at least. Also, I feel the interview transcripts were a genius addition as I think they were a much lighter read then chapters full of mass dialogue. My only grievance with the jumping from narrative to narrative was that it packed a lot of information into such a small amount of pages. During many sittings of this read I felt like I had read far more than I actually had and this was due to us having to learn quite a fair bit of background information before we could get into the main part of the plot.
Once I got over halfway through this book I was totally gripped and really struggled to put it down. I was utterly baffled by how ballsy Pippa becomes; perhaps a trait you wouldn’t expect her to have at the beginning of the novel. There are many moments in the second half that honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to go through with. As a character, Pippa was so relatable. I think this was helped by the fact that she was a female A-Level student, studying in an English school. This is something I have experienced first hand meaning so many of their throw away comments took me right back to my time at Sixth Form with my friends.
I loved how Jackson built Pippa’s relationships. Whether they were platonic, familial or amorous they were created so well with so much depth that they felt beyond real. I loved how her relationship with her family and friends was just there it wasn’t a main focal point but they all still had an effect on the decisions she made. The relationship that definitely had the biggest impact was probably the least predictable. Pippa strikes up, initially on the wrong foot, a relationship with the younger brother of the accused. Ravi. He has her back through thick and thin. It’s perhaps quite obvious from the off that their relationship will eventually become romantic but it was refreshing to see that in a YA book it wasn’t the be-all and end-all that they got together. Most importantly they were detective partners first which saw a beautiful relationship blossom from something far darker.
Overall, I bloody loved this book! Even more so because I couldn’t figure out who was truly to blame. I was kept guessing right until the bitter end, which was so exhilarating. Holly Jackson wrote A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder so well full of thrashing twists and turns. I gave this book a truly well deserved 5⭐️s.
M🌸
