This book... this book BROKE ME.

Mild spoilers ahead for the general early plot of this book. I will NOT be spoiling anything further. As is Holly Jackson's specialty, I never saw it coming.

In the previous installment in this series, Good Girl, Bad Blood, we left Pip in a dark, deeply distressed state. She'd just witnessed the death of Stanley, a reporter who was revealed to be the child of a serial killer (one who'd been roped into helping lead kids to their death), by the hands of Charlie Green, a sibling of one of those murdered children. It was brutal and hard to read, and a shock to me that what started as a teen detective series went completely further than I'd ever expect it could go.

In As Good As Dead, Pip is also broken. She's suffering from PTSD and an addiction to Xanax because she can't sleep. She's plagued by a now broken moral compass. Pip struggles to reconcile the knowledge that Stanley as a child had no choice in helping his father, and the justice Charlie sought in killing Stanley to avenge his sister. Pip can't wrap her head around how both can be true, and struggles with the grayness of the scenario. This is escalated by the Max Hastings case, which unfortunately ruled in his favor - as many real-life rape and sexual assault cases do - and lead to Max getting off free. Even worse, he is now SUING PIP for damages, including libel (re: her podcast and final tweet post-verdict), which makes her even angrier.

The Pip we meet in this book is enraged. Disgusted. Questioning. Guilty. Grieving. To look back at how she started (which the book does often), it's been a dark and perilous journey. And this book only gets darker with the inclusion of Pip's newest case: the DT serial killer. Pip is involved in the case before she knows it. What starts with seemingly harmless anon tweets and emails turns into stalking, including creepy chalk drawings and dead pigeons at her door. But when the stalking escalates into voiceless phone calls and direct attacks, Pip realizes she is meant to be the DT killer's sixth victim. And she'll do whatever she can to stop the killer, save herself, and absolve the hurt she's caused others.

Ultimately, that dilemma remains Pip's central conflict throughout the entire series. Pip believes in justice and doing whatever she can to find it. But each book leaves her plagued with despair, guilt, and grief over the pain she's caused her loved ones because of her work on those cases. This book brings that to the next level, and it's gut-wrenching to see how much Pip's mental and emotional states have deteriorated in the span of the previous two books.

Holly, once again, writes a fantastic book I couldn't put down. It felt very full circle for the series, and I think this was the right way to conclude Pip's story. (Though I could ABSOLUTELY see an adult version of Pip return someday; teen Pip, however, feels very complete in this arc). I'm still processing my feelings on it. I'm pretty much only docking a star because the first half of the book felt very easy and transparent to me as far as the mystery. But the second half is where it goes completely off the rails, and where I spent most of the book in sheer panic over what would happen next.

I'm truly obsessed with this series. I will absolutely read whatever Holly Jackson writes next! And I will continue to yell from the rooftops for anyone who loves mystery/crime to read these books - I can't imagine you'll be disappointed.

I love this trilogy so much. Especially as the popularity of true crime continues to rise, having a teen fiction “true crime” book is intriguing to students and encourages them to continue into the series.

This was not good. Pip lost all her character development and was a completely different person the entire book. More than that, this book just wasn’t necessary at all. It tied some things together but mostly it was just word vomit and dumb. And I know the last two books were far fetched but this one was just SO ridiculous and not enjoyable because of that.

Summary from Goodreads:

Pip Fitz-Amobi is haunted by the way her last investigation ended. Soon she’ll be leaving for Cambridge University but then another case finds her . . . and this time it’s all about Pip.

Pip is used to online death threats, but there’s one that catches her eye, someone who keeps asking: who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? And it’s not just online. Pip has a stalker who knows where she lives. The police refuse to act and then Pip finds connections between her stalker and a local serial killer. The killer has been in prison for six years, but Pip suspects that the wrong man is behind bars. As the deadly game plays out, Pip realizes that everything in Little Kilton is finally coming full circle. If Pip doesn’t find the answers, this time she will be the one who disappears . . .

After the events of book 2, Pip has a very bad case of PTSD. It’s so hard to see a character we’ve loved through 2 books go through all of that. She hears gunshots, feels blood on her hands, can’t sleep and is just is dealing with tons of physical and mental effects of everything she experienced. She’s attempting to handle it herself and hiding her struggles from her loved ones. It’s really difficult to read, because she is very loved and everyone would be more than willing to help. The way she’s acting and coping is realistic, but it’s just so very sad that she’s dealing with this alone.

It was hard to see a character that I love break down and change before my eyes. It seemed like her entire personality and core beliefs changed, which was very disappointing. She became the kind of person that was hard to root for with some choices she made. This series is about a smart and inquisitive kid who keeps a decent attitude about things and doesn’t take no for an answer and book 3 takes all those traits about her, twists them, and uses them in such an odd way. I felt that Ravi was almost too complicit and the story just kept getting more and more hard to believe. I kept thinking there would be some sort of satisfying change of storyline, but sadly this was not the case.

I did like the deep connections there were between this book and the previous two. Like book 2, some big players come back again. Pip and Ravi's banter was evocative of the first two books and was really cute and I liked how Pip considered Ravi as a cornerstone of everything good in the world. I think my biggest issue with this book is how drastically dark it got really quickly. I loved this series because it was a YA murder mystery. This book though, wow was it dark. Still YA but definitely not as ‘young’ as the other books were. I personally would have been happier thinking the story ended with book 2. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children's for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have read all in this series and was surprised at this one. I had to suspend all my disbelief to be able to read it. But it was well thought-out, well written, and by the end, I thought--possibly. It was longer than the others, so readers will have to commit. However, all my students who love Holly Jackson will devour it quickly!

I really love the way that Holly Jackson writes. Her characters are memorable and all have a distinct personality. This whole series has been a great dive into murder and mystery and family secrets and intrigue. Thanks for a great ride, Ms. Jackson!

Oh, how I love this trilogy! I love how the cases all tied together. The fact that the traumatic experience Pip went through in the second book wasn’t simply forgotten about in this one is incredible. I will certainly be on the look out for what Holly Jackson writes in the future.

The third installment of Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is a page turner! Just when you think you know Pip and the Connecticut town she has been sleuthing in for two books, Holly Jackson throws a massive curve!

Without any spoilers, all I can say is that if you think you know where this is going, you don’t. Highly recommend you read this one and it’s a MUST that you read the first two in the series before. I can’t wait to see what Jackson writes next.

This was a worthy third book in this series, which I have found gripping and compulsively readable from the beginning. The story did not go the way I thought it would, turning in many directions that I didn’t see coming. Just like the other two books, it was smart, suspenseful, and tightly plotted.

This series has been amazing start to finish and the final one in the series did not disappoint! Holly Jackson is masterful in her writing and the twists and turns.

This was… definitely a rollercoaster. I really enjoyed the middle portion of the book, even though the very beginning was kind of slow moving for me. Then the middle picked up and I was very intrigued.

Then…. Pip made a choice. And I was so frustrated from that point onwards, which is what docked off an entire star from my rating. It just felt weird for the whole second half of the book, and the last 10% made me really annoyed.

I also was able to guess who Pip’s stalker was within a few chapters, so I’m surprised it took her longer since the other two books have been able to surprise me for the most part. All in all, this is a decent book, but my least favorite of the three.

THANK YOU to Netgalley, Holly Jackson, and the publisher for this ARC -- I've been lucky enough to be selected to read the ending of this trilogy before it's released in September 2021 -- and it's a STRONG ending for this trilogy.

This third book in the series brings us back to Pip and the summer before she leaves for college. She's still reeling and dealing with the aftermath from the events in book two -- related to Stanley Forbes and The Child Brewster -- but this adds on a good layer to that.

On one hand, you might say: how can so much sh!+ happen in one town?! But, I think Holly Jackson does a good job of tying it all together. I think it was her plan from the get-go in much the same way that J.K. Rowling laid a good plan to tie things together across 7 books.

There is a giant twist in the second half of the book and I'm laughing about and loving the decision Jackson made to go this route.

So, I do think that Jackson has written a satisfying ending to this trilogy and thought up a twist that turned the second half of this book into something entirely different. Well done.

Pip is back and getting ready to head to college with a new project in her sights. When she starts getting emails asking who would look for her if she disappeared, Pip starts to get nervous. Add in a few sinister signs around the house, Pip knows she needs to figure out who is after her before she can look into anything else.

Ahhh, our girl Pip is back! I have missed you, my friend! As always, Holly Jackson had my turning the pages as fast as I could to find out what was happening. I did find myself in a small lull after hitting the mid point, because it felt a bit like they were two different stories that wove together, but once I got past that I was full speed ahead again! If you loved the first two in this series, you will love this one!

Thanks to NetGalley and Holly Jackson for an ARC copy.

This books is the 3rd in the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series. When the story opens, we find Pip in a bad way, suffering from PTSD after the end of book 2. Pip thinks that solving just one more case will fix everything and get her life back on the rails. But will that work, or just drag her further down into the darkness?

The tone of this book is way darker than the previous 2... lots of grey areas about morality. I realize the last half of the book will turn off some readers... but it does force you to think deeply! I would only recommend for mature readers. Be prepared to not be able to put it down after halfway in. A fitting end to a wild series.

This was definitely one of my most highly anticipated reads after absolutely loving the first 2 books in the trilogy. I’m happy to say this book was extremely enjoyable and a great close out to the series. Pip is such a fun character and I liked how she was fleshed out even more in the final books - flaws and all. While this wasn’t the direction I saw it going, I thought it was super creative and I didn’t want to put it down.

I will say that it has been a little bit since I had read the 2nd book, so for those of you that need a refresher I’d recommend skimming how that ends because this one picks right back up and I had sort of forgotten what happened. It did drag a bit for me in the beginning, and some at the end as well, but it was still very entertaining. Definitely recommend!

Thank you to Net Galley and Random House Children’s for this e-galley in return for an honest review.

Full review will be linked once it's up on The Wellesley News; the post will likely be scheduled sometime between September 14-21.

As Good as Dead is the conclusion to the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy, and is it cheesy of me to say it was … thrilling? I’ve admittedly not been a fan of the series for that long; my friend urged me to read the series last summer, and I didn’t even pick up the second book until after my review copy for As Good as Dead was approved on NetGalley. But I’m extremely glad I got the chance to read an early copy; what a wild ride it was.
After Pippa Fitz-Amobi solved not one but two mysteries in her Connecticut suburb, you’d think her life would have calmed down a little. But instead, Pip starts to find mysterious drawings, cryptic notes and more — someone is stalking her, and they want her dead. Her boyfriend urges her to investigate, but as Pip begins collecting evidence, she quickly begins to dig a hole too deep.
I can’t say much more about this book without revealing any of the massive plot twists it goes through, so I’ll take the time now to praise Holly Jackson’s writing. Hints for the plot of As Good as Dead have been left in her previous books, so subtly that I completely missed them until the book went full circle. Plot-wise, As Good as Dead really makes you think about justice and morality, whereas the previous books in this series were a little more black-and-white.
I’m going to be thinking about this one for a while. I have a feeling it’ll be the most controversial of the books in this series, but personally, I think the direction that Jackson took was the right one.

As Good As Dead (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #3)
By Holly Jackson

As Good as Dead begins with our girl Pip in a pretty bad place. She has post-traumatic stress from what happened in book 2 (no spoilers) and has become a little too dependent on pharmaceuticals to help her sleep and well, just get through the day. She’s so off her game that she’s not sure if she really has a stalker or if she’s just imagining it (obvs, she really does have a stalker.)

But by mid-book our brave, brilliant, crafty, stubborn, loyal Pip was BACK in the biggest and baddest way! I was hyped for her, but then things took a really, really dark turn. Like, really dark. I can’t say much more for fear of spoilers but let’s just say that I was very unsettled by the direction the author took with the storyline.

I know that a lot of us are huge AGGGTM fans and are looking forward to book 3. I’m not going to say don’t read this book. You should absolutely read this book because I need to talk to people about it! And, if the author chooses to write another book, it will be an auto-buy for me because I just can’t get enough of Pip, even though this book made my heart hurt.

DNF’ed at 59%

I felt uncomfortable reading after the twist. Most people have talked about it, but the extreme nonchalance about everything that happened didn’t sit right with me. I won’t spoil it for those who want to finish the book.

That being said, I really enjoyed the first two novels of the series. I think they should have stayed a duology. This third book was entirely unnecessary.

The third thrilling book in the bestselling, award-winning A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is The New York Times No.1 bestselling YA crime thriller and WINNER of The British Book Awards' Children's Book of the Year 2020 and SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES CHILDREN'S BOOK PRIZE 2020.

Full review to come on Instagram closer to Pub Day. Thank you to the publishers Random House Children's, Delacorte Press, author Holly Jackson, and NetGalley for a review copy.

This is it. The finale of A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder trilogy by Holly Jackson--As Good As Dead, and let me tell you: It is intense. Like crazily intense. Pip is thinking about heading to college, but is still haunted by her last “case” and podcast subject. She even turns a little Lady Macbeth as she wipes Stanley Forbes’ blood off of her hands. Helped by some product she purchases from Luke, Pip longs for her life to return to normal, starting with the ability to sleep at night. Then she receives strange messages, prank phone calls, and an online message--several times--asking, “Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?” Team Pip and Ravi go back into action to solve the mystery before Pip indeed disappears.

And I’m going to stop with the summary now before I spoil anything for anyone. All of the old cast of characters are back: Pip’s family, sisters Cara and Naomi Ward, Nat De Silva, Jason Bell, brothers Connor and Jamie Reynolds, Max Hastings, Officer De Silva, and Officer Hawkins. The Andie Bell case from A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder plays a big role in this final novel, as does the outcome of Good Girl, Bad Blood. I would highly suggest that readers read the first two books before devouring As Good As Dead. Jackson does well giving background without it becoming tedious, but I still think to get the full effect of the novel, read the entire trilogy.

Fans of Karen McManus, Ally Carter, and Diana Urban will also like this novel. I’d recommend it for 8th grade and above--possibly mature 7th grade students. Profanity is used, but not gratuitously. Had I been the characters in some of the situations, I would not say anything different. There is light drug use and there is murder. The violence and discussion of violence may bother some readers, but if you like a great mystery with compelling characters and twisty-curvy plot, you’ll love Holly Jackson’s, As Good As Dead.

Thanks to Random House Kinds and NetGalley for the free E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.