I finished one book series this year (though I have some hopes for Mistborn) and darn it I’m actually going to blog about some books. Mainly the above. The Good Girls Guide to Murder series in which I realized, amongst other things, I definitely have some lines in the sand of vengeance and justice.
I do want to warn of some triggers for: drug use, abduction, rape, assault, death of an animal, suicide and in book two discussions about an old case involving the murder of young children. Plus since I’m talking about the whole series some of this could be considered spoilery.
In the first book (see above pic: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder) we follow Pip whose doing her school project on a solved 5-year old murder.
Why solved?
Well because Pip thinks something is off about the case of Andie Bell local popular girl. She disappeared and was declared dead the murder pinned on her boyfriend who took his own life in the woods behind his house seemingly out of guilt. It was a mess. A tragedy and the whole town wants to forget. But not Pip.
I gave the first book:
It’s a good mystery. I liked Pip and I liked the town and the people in it who are pretty prominent in this book. The only thing I hated was an animal died but at least in this one Pip feels it and it’s not just brushed aside. Anyway overall fun read. Minus the animal death and murder.
Also I love the Podcast stuff and the non-text bits… (non-text bits is not the word I am looking for but it’s been a while since I’ve blogged about books!)
And Then Book 2
This one is kind of weird because I actually do remember the mystery and it’s not bad. It relates to information uncovered in the first book and has some interesting moments. I appreciated Pip’s relationships stayed strong in this one and also though I found her kind of annoying I appreciated we started dealing with her trauma here.
Cause anyone who lived through what she does in the first book especially at any age is going to have some issues so I liked that Jackson acknowledged it.
Also the fate of the dead animal from book one is still weighing on her.
I just can’t remember anything else.
Still makes a good sequel/mid-book in a series.
Book the Third…
The last book in Pip’s story is the one I probably have the most issues with. The mystery of a serial killer isn’t that important and is actually solved about halfway through the book and then it goes off into strange territory that might make Sherlock Holmes have a hard time figuring this case out.
Ugh. It’s hard to do this while being spoiler free.
All three book’s mysteries play into each other and there’s also an on-going side story with a rapist who was drugging girls in town which also plays heavily in this one. Pip’s mental health is front and center here as well though a lot of other things (like her family, friends and the town kind of take a back seat.)
It’s hard to knock a girl whose going through it but I also couldn’t help but feel she was super reckless which felt out of character. Like at times I kept thinking there’s a child in your house Pip- you may want to consider him which book one and two Pip would have.
I also felt like there’s no way what happens at the end actually works. But still overall I’d go with a solid…
And recommend the series overall. Or stop at the first one… that works to 🙂