The first book in the “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” series hit the shelves in May 2019, slowly finding its popularity among the young adult audience. Since then, the series has been complete as a trilogy and it gave me a new perspective on what a thriller book could look like.
The story follows a girl named Pip who choses to investigate a murder case in her town for a senior project. Through wild twists and turns, Pip eventually uncovers the truth about the events in her small town that transpired years ago. In the second book, “Good Girl Bad Blood,” she starts a podcast, to which she then finds herself in the middle of another deadly case. The trilogy wraps up in the final book “As Good As Dead” in a chilling and nightmarish way in which Pip is faced with her greatest challenge yet.
For the sake of spoilers, not a whole lot more can be said about the subject of these books, especially since they are thriller/mystery. The story makes sense when you put the books together, and I think the author, Holly Jackson, did a masterful job of keeping readers engaged and on the edge of their seats.
Starting with the original “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” book, this had me attached from the first page. Before this, I had never been much of a thriller reader. I have never enjoyed having to wait for so long to try and guess what happened (even though every guess I had about what happened in this book turned out to be wrong). It is a much different feel to read something like this and not the typical romance book I usually go for.
I will note that in all three of these books, there is a subplot of romance, which I think is what made it so easy for me to get through.
I really liked how the interviews were a different format than the regular text was. It made it easier for me to follow along with what was going on. Another thing I liked about this was that there were images that went with the “evidence” in the story. I can’t remember the last time I read a book that had a picture in it, but I appreciated them being there to envision the scene further. I rated the first book four out of five stars on Goodreads.
Of course, there were some points that were super frustrating about the book, but I feel like that is to be expected. Again, for the sake of spoilers I cannot go into too much more detail, but I felt that the ending of the first novel set up the second nicely. It was not quite a cliffhanger, but it still left you wanting more.
The second book in this trilogy, “Good Girl Bad Blood,” is where the issues started for me. Now don’t get me wrong, this book was still enjoyable but I felt like it took so much more effort for me to get through. The pacing felt so incredibly slow, especially compared to the first book, but nevertheless it was still a good story.
What I liked most in this book was the investigation style. Since the case was much different than the first one, and much more personal, Pip went about solving it a little bit differently. With that said, this book felt like it was suffering from “middle book syndrome” where it does not compare to the feeling of the first one. It felt a little bit dry and diluted, so I didn’t have a whole lot of motivation to pick up the next book. I rated this one three out of five.
After I was done reading that second book, I made an all encompassing mistake. Let me walk you through it. Netflix had been working on an adaptation for the first “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” book. I knew this and was excited to watch it. However, I didn’t watch any of the previews of the series before I started watching it and I wish I had. The show was probably the worst book adaptation I had ever seen.
First, the new series was set in an entirely different country, which doesn’t sound like a big deal but it was hard for me to believe that the characters I was seeing on the screen were the same ones as the ones from the books. Second, they changed so much about the plot that it’s like the book never existed in the first place. Every episode was easy to pick out things that were wrong and/or different, which made the watching experience even worse.
To top it all off, I felt like the script writing was not up to par. For the subject of the series, even though the novel is a young adult book, the scriptwriting itself was one of the most disappointing parts of the show. The characters’ dialogue was so far off from the book it was almost laughable. It made me wonder how the author could ever take part in producing a show that was supposed to mirror the book, but after I learned that Jackson had limited control in production it all made sense.
Jackson has since spoken out in an interview with Variety saying “I sympathize entirely with book fans who wanted to see their favorite moments.” The series had been picked up for a second season by Netflix. Jackson posted a picture of the cover of a script for season two, and this time it says “Written by Holly Jackson.” Personally, I am hopeful this season will be a little better than the first.
Back to the original book series themselves, after watching the show I had to take a three month break from the novels because I had no drive to continue the series. After some peer pressure by a family friend, I finally read the third one and I was not disappointed at all.
“As Good As Dead” took some time to get into, but I don’t think that is any fault of the author. Going back and looking through, the second book sets up the third nicely, similarly to how the first set up the second.
In this final story, Pip is faced with her most dangerous encounter yet, mainly because it is now her life on the line. Reading this book felt a lot darker than the first two. It had me constantly checking over my shoulder to see if I was alone or not because it was as if I kept feeling like I was being watched. I must say, it was a very welcome change of pace from the other two for me.
This book is more along the lines of what I was expecting when I thought of a thriller/mystery story. As soon as the story takes off, it doesn’t settle down until the final few chapters, and for this book specifically it wasn’t completely resolved until the final page. There were some areas where I thought it was dragging on a little, but those were very minor in comparison to the story as a whole.
The final book was the only one where I actually guessed who the antagonist was correctly. In fact, I started gaslighting myself into believing it couldn’t have been who it was. Even though I knew who the bad guy was, it didn’t make the book less enjoyable. I rated this a four out of five.
Overall, I would highly recommend this book series. I think the story is gripping and engaging, while also having that romance subplot to keep things balanced. I cannot, however, recommend the Netflix series. I think it can be a good watch for anyone who doesn’t know about the books, but if you’ve read even one of the novels it’ll throw everything off. This series is great if you are looking to try something new. It combines the perfect amount of storytelling and suspense, making you go in search of more books by Jackson.