A Good Girls Guide to Murder Series

     The A Good Girls Guide to Murder series was a very interesting YA murder myserty series. The star of the series was teenager Pippa Fitz-Amboi. The series started with Pip’s senior project where she decided she would look into the presumably solved homicide case of two former students at Fairview Highschool - Andie Bell and Sal Singh. After starting to find the real truth of what happened, Pip started a podcast about it called A Good Girls Guide to Murder. This podcast followed the entire case and gained major popularity around the world with hundreds of thousands of listeners by the end. Because of the popularity of the first season of the podcast, a friend of Pip’s came to her right away when his brother - Jamie Reynolds - went missing after a memorial for Sal and Andie. Pippa was unsure about this because after the first season of the podcast she was getting lots of threats and she even almost died solving the last mystery, so she didn’t know if she wanted to get into it again. As per usual in the town of Fairview the police wouldn’t do anything about this missing persons case, so Pip decided - against her better judgement - to take it into her own hands and start season two of her hit podcast. Finding Jamie Reynolds was the basic plot of the second book - Good Girl, Bad Blood - but of course the author, Holly Jackson, added in plenty of interesting twists to keep the story going. By the end of season two of her podcast Pip was certain that she was done with the mystery solving. She was put into even more danger and she was about to go off to college so the podcast and her crime solving days were in her past - so she thought. Pip began getting more and more death threats after the second season of the podcast was posted. These threats asking her “Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?” The threats progressed from just being online, to then being in person messages left where she would see them, even at her house. This made Pip and her partner in crime - Ravi Singh - get worried so they went to the police, but as per usual, they didn’t do anything. The lack of police involvement at this time caused season three of A Good Girls Guide to Murder to begin, as well as the final book of the series - As Good As Dead. With this, Pip was in the most danger she has ever been in before and she would end up doing things she never thought she would ever have to do. She was not only trying to solve a cold case, but she was also trying to save herself and protect those around her. This would be the case that would push her over the edge. Would she be able to save herself?

      Given the basic synopsis of the series, you can see that all of the books flowed into one another. They all had the same characters and similar enough plot lines, but they were also all very different from one another. The original book - A Good Girls Guide to Murder - was formatted as Pip’s Senior Capstone project. The second book - Good Girl, Bad Blood - was written as the podcast and then the final book - As Good As Dead - was just written with regular chapters. This was one of the most noticeable differences in the books. Personally, I liked the original formatting of the Capstone project the most because I feel like it worked really well given the subject matter of the book. It was also a nice way to collect all of Pip’s thoughts and the information regarding the case she was researching. This is not to say that I didn’t like the other formats, as well, but the first way was just the best executed. Another obvious difference between the three books was the main side characters. Ravi Singh was a part of each of the books, but was only more of a main character in the last book. The way that Ravi’s character changed throughout the series is similar to how multiple other characters changed, as well. Having these differences in the importance of the characters helped the books flow together without seeming like the same thing copied and pasted. The different types of mysteries also helped with this, with the first mystery being almost completely disconnected from the protagonist, Pip, to the last being directly connected to her. Overall, I feel like the author - Holly Jackson - did a great job connecting the books. That being said, in my opinion, the first book - A Good Girls Guide to Murder - was the best of the three. 

      I enjoyed all three of the books, but the original was definitely my favorite. Nothing can compare to the first reaction to a book, even if you’re reading a series of books. The initial reaction to the shock of the cases, Pip’s personality, and just the general tone and feel of the book simply cannot be topped. Although I really enjoyed reading the two books that came after A Good Girls Guide to Murder, it could also easily be left as a standalone book. Good Girl, Bad Blood and As Good As Dead did a great job at continuing a similar plot line to the predecessor, but at some points it did seem a little repetitive, which is not too surprising. In general, the amount of similarities between the books is what made them harder to continue reading. Each book had their own original ending, though. The final book of the trilogy - As Good As Dead, had a lot of pressure on it to finish out the series. Personally, I found the ending to be pretty interesting as it was something I was not at all expecting. It could have gone a lot of different directions, but the way it ended was good enough for this trilogy. If I could change one thing about the series, though, it probably would be the ending. It just wasn’t satisfying for me.  Regardless of this, I still thought the series as a whole was really good. I would definitely recommend the original book - A Good Girls Guide to Murder - to anyone who likes murder mystery's and I would recommend the other two books depending on how much you like the first. I give the series an overall rating of 4/5 stars because it was a very interesting and engaging series.