October Book Picks: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson is a mystery novel about a high school senior girl named Pip Fitz-Amobi who re-investigates a closed local murder case for her final-year school project. Five years earlier in a quiet town of England, the town believed popular student Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend Sal Singh, who then sent a confession text and died by suicide. However, Pip never believed Sal was the murderer. Using a school project as a cover, she teams up with Sal’s younger brother, Ravi, to re-examine the evidence and interview witnesses. 

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is for readers who love fast-paced stories, and true crime investigations. The book follows a theme of complexities of justice, damaging weight of hidden secrets, and bravery. It is structured like a real true-crime case and interactive, breaking from traditional narrative by incorporating interview transcripts, case notes, text messages, maps, police notes, and project logs. This layout made me feel like I am an active detector solving the case with Pip. Her teamwork and growing bond with Ravi also adds a great emotional weight and chemistry to the story. The story’s unexpected twists kept me reading until the end. This book personally made me think about the gap between legal outcomes and true, moral justice.