Book Review of ‘A Good Girls Guide To Murder’ by Holly Jackson

A Good Girls Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson

Audiobook via Local Library

4 Star Review by Asia
In 2014, a 17 year old girl named Andy went missing in the town of Fairview. Days later her boyfriend Sal, sends a confession text to his father hours before his body is found in the local woods, a victim of suicide. Although Andy’s body has never been found, It’s clear to everyone what happened and the town willingly accepts the tragedy. Until a high school student, Pippa Fitz-Amobi decides to use the incident as a senior project to shed more light on the part the media played as well as to cast doubt on the case. She didn’t know him very well, but she can’t shake the feeling that maybe Sal isn’t as guilty as he looks. But as she starts looking into what happened that night, her project turns from an innocent end-of-year assignment into a full blown amateur investigation for the truth. In doing so, she meets Sals younger brother, Ravi who is also confident his brother could not have done this and joins Pip in her search for information. Pippa starts to unearth a web of lies and secrets that connect far too many people to Andy’s disappearance. The pair grows increasingly more confident that Sal did not do this, but how can they prove it? And if he didn’t, who did? Pippa starts to receive ominous texts and typed notes left in isolated places, urging her to stop her search and leave well enough alone, confirming that she is definitely on to something. Could she be right in thinking Sal is completely innocent? Is she getting close enough to prove it? And more importantly.. Is she in danger of suffering the same fate as Andy and Sal?
I enjoyed this book via Audiobook and I must say, while the story was definitely a good one, it was made infinitely better by the multiple voice actors that brought it to life. The author had me captivated right up until the very end. I like to give a hypothesis towards the middle of a story when I think I might know “who-done-it” and more often than not I’m right. (Which might sound braggy but it’s not, I prefer to be wrong because that means the story isn’t so predictable.) In this case I can happily say that I was wrong, albeit very close! I enjoyed that the author also threw in some curve balls that they either forgot to tie up or were purposefully done to keep the reader guessing. In hindsight, maybe it was me looking into something that wasn’t there… Either way, it worked! I’m curious to know if anyone else experienced this.
I enjoyed this one by Holly Jackson and would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes the work and writing style of Karen McManus. The differences being that you only get Pipps point of view from Holly, and Karen writes from the perspective of multiple characters. This is the first in a 3 book series by Holly Jackson and I am eager to see what the other two have to offer. I rate this book ⅘ based on the Goodreads star rating scale. I consumed this content through Audiobook via my local library and was not sponsored or promoted in any way.