A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
Holly Jackson, 2019
Mystery, thriller & crime Young adultContemporary fiction
A high-school detective reopens a closed murder case for her final project and finds the town’s nice stories are built on lies. The mood is curious and uneasy, with a brisk teen voice sorting through small-town secrets and moral knots.
About morality.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy YA crime stories where a teenager asks awkward questions and follows evidence through a small town. The murder case and the town's lies make for some grim, tense stretches, so it may not suit you if you want a light read.
Why read it
It lets you follow a closed case from the inside, weighing evidence and loyalty as the town's tidy story comes apart.
A page from the book
Love is not an equation you can solve by keeping your distance.
The people you love weren’t algebra: to be calculated, subtracted, or held at arm’s length across a decimal point. Holly Jackson.The novel was first published in 2019; the series was later adapted for television by the BBC.
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A teenage detective turns investigator when the police dismiss a disappearance, testing how far she will go for justice—and what it costs the people she loves.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is A Good Girl's Guide to Murder for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy YA crime stories where a teenager asks awkward questions and follows evidence through a small town. The murder case and the town's lies make for some grim, tense stretches, so it may not suit you if you want a light read.
- What is A Good Girl's Guide to Murder like?
- The mood is curious and uneasy, with a brisk teen voice sorting through small-town secrets and moral knots. About morality.
- What should I read after A Good Girl's Guide to Murder?
- If you liked A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, try Still Life (Louise Penny), The Guest List (Lucy Foley) and Matilda (Roald Dahl).
A taste of the feed
Four short sentences, and not one of them comes easily.
There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?’ She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin. "They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean." Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. "I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong’.
Still Life · Louise Penny
When anger arrives as relief, because it clears everything else away.
The rage is growing inside me, overtaking the shock and grief. I can feel it blossoming up behind my ribs. It’s almost a relief, how it obliterates every other feeling in its path.
The Guest List · Lucy Foley
Every book she read was a ship sent out by someone who felt alone.
So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.
Matilda · Roald Dahl
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