A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

 First, in my defense, I had already started this book BEFORE I created the challenge for myself yesterday to only read books from certain TBR piles in my house and the CloudLibrary holds on my iPad. I didn't cheat! Now on to my review...

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson was a book that I heard about because I almost concurrently saw it on a friend's Goodreads profile and on the nominee's list for 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction. The friend reading it happens to be a co-worker, and she lent me the book. It sat here on a stack of TBR's for a week or two, and then yesterday as I was finalizing my Popsugar and ATY52 challenge lists, I realized I could use it to fulfill a prompt for both, and here we are.

This is the story of a high school student, Pippa Fitz-Amobi, who decides to do her senior capstone project on the infamous murder-suicide of two students that had occurred in her hometown 5 years before. She never really believed Sal, the boy thought to have killed Andie Bell before killing himself, was guilty, and she sets out to prove it.

With the eventual help of Sal's brother Ravi, excellent sleuthing skills, a complete lack of concern for her own safety, and lots of brains and sarcasm, Pip interviews persons of interest, goes "undercover" as a reporter for CNN, goes to a town hall meeting to confront a suspect, does a little breaking and entering in the name of justice, and so much more. The danger she is putting herself in slowly becomes more apparent, but that doesn't stop this teenage pseudo-detective from working her case. 

I found the writing strong, enjoyed the various formats of storytelling (log entries, interview transcripts, diagrams, and typical character chapters) and found them intriguing rather than distracting. I really liked the little bit of Pip's family life we got to see on display (her parents remind me of Olive's mom and dad in Easy A and I would have loved to read more of that dynamic). The case seems like it may be derailed, then perhaps tied up with a neat little red-strong bow, but there is a nice twist near the end that had me wracking my brain to try to untie the knots and solve it before the conclusion.

I am happy to see there is a second installment of Pip's story coming out on March 2, 2021. I also learned this book was originally published in the UK, then published in the US afterwards with a change in setting (moved from England to Connecticut). I noticed another reader mentioned that the dialogue did not fit the US setting at all, but I did not find that to be the case. If I had not read after that this was a slightly altered version of a UK book, I would not have suspected it had been published there first. 

I rarely give books a 5 star rating, but A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is a solid 4.5 star story. I would definitely recommend it, and look forward to the next installment.

Final rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5 stars)

ATY prompt 48: a book that might cause someone to react "You read what?!?"

Popsugar Challenge prompt 44: a book on your TBR list with the ugliest cover (sorry, but it's true - great book, terrible cover)