A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

17-year-old Pip chooses an interesting subject for her school project – a deep dive into a murder-suicide that occurred in her small town 5 years prior. Convinced that Andie Bell was not murdered by her suicidal boyfriend, Sal Singh, Pip teams up with Sal’s brother, Ravi, to uncover the truth.

The premise of this story was intriguing from the very start. It was the first time I had heard of a teenager investigating a murder as part of a school project (the school project being the unique qualifier here). The presentation of the story was a cool choice, albeit confusing at first. The story is written in the third person for the majority of the chapters, but occasionally chapters from Pip’s Project Log are thrown in, which are written in the first person. The content of these logs range from thoughts Pip is having regarding the investigation to transcripts of interviews she has with various persons of interest. While the transition between first and third person tended to interrupt the flow of the story at first, eventually it became a seamless transition as I got used to the style of writing.

The overall story was intriguing and kept me guessing for the majority of the story. About 3/4 of the way through, I had narrowed the suspect pool down to the perpetrator(s), but had no idea the ending would be what it was! There were definitely some surprise twists in there that added to the intrigue.

And yes, there is a touch of a love story in this YA novel, but it’s not very prominent, which I appreciated, as I worried the introduction of a love story could overtake the main objective.

All in all, I’m excited to read the sequel!