Member Reviews
I enjoyed the first book in this series immensely, to the point where I couldn't put it down and read it in about two sittings. The style of this book is, as always, amazing. Jackson does a great job using multimedia inserts to keep the reader engaged The second book fell flat for me, and unfortunately so this this installment of the series. Pippa was a character I enjoyed in book one because I resonated with her educational drive, but this book completely throws off her character for me. The biggest problem for me was the content of this story, it feels like it doesn't fit with the rest of the series, as mentioned before, it didn't feel like Pippa! Pippa, the characterized nice girl, would never do these (really unbelievable if I'm being honest) things!
Overall, while I personally didn't enjoy this book, I think this is a good read for anyone who enjoys true crime or thrillers.
I’m a bit sad this series has now ended. I really like all three books and finding an enjoyable thriller series is no easy feat. I absolutely adore these characters. This started a little slow but eventually did escalate into the thrills, twists and turns this series is known for. My only complaint was the very open ended ending. I would have preferred a little more closure in a final book.
What a great series!! While this book was longer than the first two and dragged a slight bit in the middle, it was a wild ride and Pip is a great character. She is definitely much more vigilante in this book, but with her ride or die friends and BF Ravi, there is nothing Pip can't handle.
Pip is being sued by her nemesis, Max Hastings, and strange markings and messages are popping up on her driveway and the path she runs along. Pip tries to take her concerns to Detective Hawkins, but is brushed off. So of course she and Ravi dig in to figure out what is going on.
There is a serial killer, an innocent man in prison, and revenge.
Let me start off my saying that this review is my opinion only and does not represent anyone else. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book. I was looking forward to reading the end of this trilogy but I was not prepared for how it would end. The twist in the middle.. wow! It starts of kind of slow, with Pip struggling in the aftermath of the previous books events and it develops from there. I'm not sure where am I with the decisions that Pip makes and where she ends up, but I enjoy her as a character with her strength and tenacity.
“Who will look for you when you are the one who disappears?”
Oh my freaking god! I am so, so invested in this series. This town. These characters. This is a the very best kind of book, the kind of book that keeps you up into the early hours even though you know you have to wake up in the morning but you just HAVE to keep reading. I would consider myself obsessed. I recently reviewed Good Girl, Bad Blood and wrote about how I felt that the plot was much darker than the first book. Holly seems to continue that same darker theme in As Good As Dead and makes it even darker and I absolutely loved out. Our good girl, Pip is now as morally grey as they come and suffering from PTSD. She is paranoid and quite rightly freaking out. She has anxiety, sleeping problems and hallucinations and to top it all off she has been getting anonymous messages. Do they mean anything? Is it another online troll or is someone really out to get her? Things go from bad to worse for Pip and it really is one hell of a stressful ride!
Pip is not the same Pip we know and love from previous books. Pip is struggling, she is hurting and she no longer believes in justice. When she starts to spiral she feels like one more case could be just the thing to bring her mojo back and help her get back to her old self. I feel like Holly’s depiction of Pip’s PTSD was incredibly believable and well-written. You really find yourself getting stressed and panicking for Pip as the stalking progresses into something far more sinister. I was amazed by how the trilogy went full circle and managed to actually explain and wrap up the mystery using clues right back from the very first book. The town’s characters have all changed and grown throughout the series and I just think the development of it all was fantastically done. I still love Ravi, he genuinely is perfect. I was amazed to see how far he would go to protect Pip in the latter half of this book.
Explosive is the world I would use to describe the pacing of this book. I was sucked in from the very beginning and it was all systems go from start to finish. As with both previous books it is written with a mixture of standard chapters, interviews and evidence pages. I still love the formatting, it is perfect and makes it feel like you are investigating and figuring things out right alongside Pip. I really liked the direction the story and the characters took. Although it was a much darker story it made it all the more thrilling for me. So many things happened that I didn’t expect! The mystery keeps you on your toes the entire time although I must admit that unlike the other two books I did actually guess who was behind it this time. I don’t think that is a bad thing but when gathering up evidence and clues throughout the full trilogy it seemed obvious to me pretty early on who the “baddie” was. Saying that even though I figured that part out there were still a lot of surprises after the reveal that kept things very exciting!
Without spoiling the story I will just say that the way Holly wove all three stories together to create this absolutely epic finale really did blow me away. I loved everything about it. It is not often that every book in a series gets 5 stars but this is well-deserved from me. I am sad the series is over but I am excited to see what this author comes up with next. You can be sure she has a firm place on my auto-buy authors list in the future. Thanks for the adventure, I had a great time!
A thrilling conclusion to the trilogy, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, As Good as Dead is the ultimate twist ending to Pippa’s story. Unexpected? Yes. Satisfying? Yes. Complicated? Absolutely. If you’re looking for a mystery series with complicated and morally complex characters (y’know, as people tend to be), with a plot that is intricate and interwoven, and with matching amounts of intrigue, intelligence, humanity and even humor in all aspects, then you should absolutely pick up this series.
It all started in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder with a school project, a podcast about a small town murder. You definitely don’t want to miss Pippa’s ultimate choice of topic for Season 3 of her podcast in As Good as Dead.
I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley and Delacorte Press in exchange for an objective review.
This wrapped up the series nicely. It wasn't wholly satisfying to me, but still good and I'll continue to recommend the series to teens at my library.
Pip is back! I really enjoyed this final book in The Good Girl's Guide to Murder series. Pip was back with her usual antics of solving crimes the police can't figure out, but this time, she is the one under attack. I thought this tied up the series perfectly. There were parts that were a little far fetched for a young woman, but it was entertaining. I love the way Holly Jackson writes stories. She has great character development and enough red herrings to keep things interesting. I'm sad this series is over, but can't wait for more from Holly Jackson! I know lots of teen girls who are going to be so excited to see this at our library!
First line: Dead-eyed.
Summary: In the final book of the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder we find Pip several months after the tragic events in book 2. She is not handling the murder very well. With college a few months off she knows that she needs to get herself back in control but it is not easy. In addition, she is being sued by Max Hastings for defamation. Pip is not willing to give in to his demands. And then she starts getting vague threats from a stalker. As the threats become more real Pip starts to link them to a serial killer that stalked the area six years previous.
My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book at the beginning. It was fun, dark and twisty but as I continued on with it the story seemed to be coming to an end real quick. But then the author throws in a whole new story with much darker plot lines. I don’t know how I feel about the second half of the book. I don’t like what happened and changed in Pip. It felt wrong. The story was intriguing and kept me listening but I just couldn’t make it fit with the character that I knew from the first two books.
FYI: Book 3 in a trilogy.
I did not enjoy this third installment of Pip's books as much as the other two. I felt like this book took a turn to the dark side. I did not appreciate the decisions Pip had to make and the evil way she was portrayed in this book. It made me concerned about her morals and her character. I get why the story took this turn, but it's not what I was expecting or wanted from the third installment.
What an interesting conclusion to this series! It was much darker than I was expecting but I definitely enjoyed it! I’m not sure I agreed with some of the twists but I still enjoyed the novel. Thanks Netgalley for my free copy!
This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
3.5 stars. I was somewhat disappointed in the way this series wrapped up to be honest. Especially from the first book, this one feels like a total departure from the format and Pip we have grown to know. Obviously this in part to her PTSD, which I thought was well portrayed. However, I was not a fan of the twist that occurs halfway through this book and how the storyline concluded. I didn’t hate it, but I don’t see myself rereading it like I would with the first two.
No spoilers here, but a great ending to a great trilogy. My students, and I!, all really enjoyed the first two books and I will definitely be purchasing this one for my library. Thrilling, entertaining, and highly enjoyable. A must read!
The final book in the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder started out with the same style and sass that we have come to expect from Pip and the whole cast of friends and family. This is a darker and grittier novel than the first two and took some major plot twists that just didn’t engage me. I wasn’t sad that this was the last book in the series because there just didn’t seem to be anywhere else to go after this. I suggest you read it and decide for yourself.
** I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.
As Good as Dead is the final book in Holly Jackson's Good Girls Guide to Murder trilogy, so having thoroughly enjoyed the first two, I immediately had to jump on this last installment.
Unfortunately it fell short for me, and I almost wished I had stopped after the second book.
Standing alone, objectively the book is fine. But as part of a series, I really struggled reconciling the actions of our main characters with how we have come to know them from the previous books.
I understand of course that the point of this story was to blur the lines between good and bad, and create some shades of gray in what used to be pretty black and white. I just don't think it worked. I didn't root for our heroine gone bad, and I actually found myself wishing she won't get away with her devious plans. It just didn't scream "eye for an eye" to me.
Without giving too much away, I can say that of course there has been some significant trauma in Pip's life and for her to be dealing with the fallout of this trauma now is very plausible. So it would be understandable for her to make reckless, illogical decisions. Blame it on PTSD or (especially after the mid-book plot twist) shock. Ravi, however, should have stepped up and been a heck of a lot more logical. He definitely has shown us in the past two books that he was capable of that. Keep his cool, take charge and rein Pip in, when she clearly wasn't thinking straight. And Ravi was on board, which really seemed to do his character a disservice. (Oh I really want to draw a parallel to the first book here, but cannot without spoilers, so I won't.) At any rate, none of the second half of the book made any sense to me. One poor decision was followed by the next, and somehow everyone just went with it. And lets just say, the epilogue left me disappointed.
“That's all. One foot in front of the other, even if she had to drag them, even when the hole in her heart felt too big to keep standing. She walked…”
I reallly liked the first 2 in this series and was so excited to get my hands on the third. It started off super promising, we had Team Pip and Ravi, we another new mystery to solve, I was engaged, I was into it, and then halfway through came the twist. I obviously will not be saying what said twist was BUT will say I did not enjoy it one bit. It seemed SO out of character to me and set off a series of events that I just did not enjoy (and also was way too detailed and could’ve easily been edited down 100 pages). This book was much darker than the first 2 as well so just be prepared for that!
At the end, I’ve given this 3⭐️s - I liked it. I loved the first half, hated the second soo my rating is in the middle. I highly recommend these on audio and don’t let my review of this one deter you from giving this series a go!
Thank you to @netgalley for the ebook in exchange for my honest review!
I really enjoyed the first two books in this series so I was so excited for a chance to read this one as well. Although this was probably my least favorite of the series it was still fun to follow along with these characters one last time. Pip is such a great main character and although she has changed a bit especially since the end of the last book she is still a great crime solver. Pip makes some crazy discoveries during this book that I did not see coming. The last chapter does get a bit dark and I was somewhat disappointed in the turn the book took. Overall I still really enjoyed this series
This book definitely took a very dark turn about halfway through, and, to be honest, I didn't really like it. It was disturbing and the gory details were hard for me to stomach. I really enjoyed the first two in the series and wish I had left it there.
*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.
This book literally broke me into a million pieces, and joined them all again (well, maybe not all). The pain, journey, and the character growth of Pip is just astounding. Saying anything more would be a spoiler. But, trust me, just go read it, and you'll be left awestruck for a long time.