A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

My rating: five stars

Genre: YA, mystery

Edition: e-book

Goodreads Summary: Everyone in Fairview knows the story.

Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.

But she can’t shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?

Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn’t want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.

This is the story of an investigation turned obsession, full of twists and turns and with an ending you’ll never expect.

This was the March Barnes and Noble YA Book Club pick. I honestly had never heard of it before now, but once I read the synopsis I was intrigued. I haven’t read many mysteries recently, but I tended to enjoy the ones that I have (as long as they weren’t too predictable). After listening to One of Us is Lying, I have been wanting to read another mystery and so this was a perfect pick.

Likes: Man, did this book surprise me! One reason that YA mystery books are not my favorite is usually because I can predict what is going to happen. However, I seriously had no clue during this entire book. The author somehow made me feel like I knew what was going on the entire time, and I was so confident, but it turns out I was so wrong it isn’t even funny. I have no clue how she did that, but I love it! I also like the main character quite a bit. Her enthusiasm and passion for her project is contagious and her “goodness” is refreshing. I am not going to talk about the other characters, even though I really want to, simply because I don’t want to give anything away. I will say that the pacing of this book was quite fast (which I like), and it always kept me on my toes.

Dislikes: Throughout this story I was frustrated with the main characters because they wouldn’t investigate events and other characters that I thought they should have. I was so sure of myself and that I knew what had happened. However, it turns out that I was being led in the wrong direction and that my frustrations at them were misplaced. So besides that, I did not dislike anything about the story, and even my dislike with the main characters was probably purposeful by the author to mislead me.

Overall, I did love this book. It was truly mysterious, misleading, fast-paced, and so much more. I did not have the highest hopes for this book but ended up really enjoying it. The ending wrapped up nicely and I was left satisfied with the events of the story. I would definitely recommend this book, it was a ton of fun!