We moved to a new house in May and between cleaning two properties, furniture shopping and settling into a new area, I fell into a deep reading slump. When we went to Brighton for two weeks in August, I happened to come across A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder sitting atop a reading stack in the house we were staying at. Being glued to BookTok from March 2020 – January 2023, I had obviously seen the hype around this book, but assumed it was too young for me. Boyyyyy, was I wrong! I ate up the entire 3-part series in a week. So, here’s my book review of the first in the series: A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder | Book 1 Summary
AGGGTM follows Pip Fitz-Amobi, a 17-year-old with some serious sleuthing skills, who is using her AS Level special project as a guise to uncover the true perpetrator behind a high-school killing in her town. 5 years earlier popular girl™ Andie Bell was (allegedly) murdered by her boyfriend Sal Singh. Although Bell’s body was never found, Sal killed himself 48 hours after her disappearance. This guilty behaviour and a dodgy alibi led the police to believe that Sal killed his girlfriend, and thus the case was closed.
Since then, the town has turned against the Singh family and Bell has been martyred. However, Pip can’t believe that Sal is guilty and digs for the truth. Along the way, she befriends Sal’s younger brother, Ravi (ding ding, love interest) and uncovers truths she wanted to find, but didn’t want to know.
Initial Thoughts and Feelings
The amateur sleuth is undeniably a difficult character to get right. On one hand, they need to be able to solve the crime in such a way that it impresses the reader. On the other hand, they can’t come to such outlandish conclusions that seem inconceivable for a teen to jump to. For an amateur sleuth to work well, the bad guys need to be actually bad at their job. Fortunately, who’s going to find a supervillain in a small town such as Little Kilton? Jackson finds the balance early on. She places Pip as a smart young woman who can follow the clues in front of her whilst making some logical guesses. The villains are good, but not so good that they don’t make mistakes and therefore the play is not impossible for the reader to follow and solve themselves. I think that’s one of the things that made this book so gripping, you piece the clues together at the same time as Pip and the moment you figure something out, she figures it out a beat or two later. Jackson allows the reader to be the smartest person in the room but doesn’t let the dramatic irony drag on for long.
On that, the pace of this book is FAST. Not so fast that you get whiplash but there are cliffhangers and leading plot lines at the end of every chapter. Once I got past halfway there was never a “good time” to put this book down. Surprisingly for a young adult novel, there was more than one moment that genuinely freaked me out. Reading it late at night, I had to wake my boyfriend up when I went for a wee just in case someone jumped out at me. I hope that Jackson tries her hand at adult thrillers in the future because I think she could create something especially chilling.
I always enjoy a small-town murder because you know that of all these nice characters you’ve met, one harbours a dark secret. I guessed one of the twists in this book but the final twist took me for a tumble. Didn’t see it coming babes!
Is A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder a spicy book?
No, not at all. I don’t even think the characters kiss in this book. The most we get is them touching their foreheads together (very sweet). There is talk of sex between other characters, but nothing explicit.
Is A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder a children’s book?
Definitely not. Themes in this book include date rape, drug abuse, drug handling, murder (somewhat gory details near the end) and toxic power dynamics.
It is not based on a true story.
Age rating: 15
Sequels & Adaptations FAQs
Do you have to read the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder books in order?
Yes! I’ll talk about this in my review of book 2 but Jackson is SO clever in the way she weaves plotlines together. There was something that specifically happened in book 1 that I thought was an extra embellishment of the plot and nothing more, but it was actually the nod to the plot of book 2!
Can A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder be read as a standalone?
The first book can, yes. But you will be confused if you read books 2 and/or 3 as a standalone.
Is there a book 4?
There’s no book 4, but there is a prequel called Kill Joy.
When is the TV series release date?
It’s out! The BBC adaptation was released on 1st July 2024. I haven’t watched it yet, so no spoilers, please.
Books like A Good Girls Guide To Murder
If you’re looking for something else to itch your small-town murder / amateur sleuth scratch, try these:
Nancy Drew series
The OG amateur sleuth.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
One for older readers and those who like to lean into fantasy. Alex Stern is Pip Fitz Amobi if she could see ghosts and had a tortured childhood
Big Little Lies by Lianne Moriarty
Another not for young readers, but a small-town murder where the perpetrator must be someone you know
Happy reading!
