Review: Good Girl, Bad Blood | Holly Jackson

This review is spoiler free.

“I think we all get to decide what good and bad and right and wrong mean to us, not what we’re told to accept.”

Series: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
Published: 2020, by Electric Monkey.
Pages: 417
Format: Paperback
Genre: Mystery, Young Adult, Thriller, Contemporary, Crime, Fiction
Contains: Strong Language, Violence, Drugs/Alcohol, Rape, Sexual Assault, Death, Murder, Trauma

‘Good Girl, Bad Blood’ continues the story of Pip Fitz-Amobi, who claims she isn’t a detective anymore. With the help of Ravi Singh, they publish a podcast regarding the murder they’d solved the previous year, which went viral, but she still is adamant that her investigating days are long over. However, when Jamie Reynolds goes missing and the police refuse to look into the disappearance, people turn to Pip to find him.

Pip Fitz-Amobi is a very curious and self-assured protagonist, which is what makes her so fascinating to read about. She doesn’t hold back, continuing to press on with the investigation regardless of whoever despises her in the process. It’s liberating to read about, becoming alike her in her curiosity and speed-reading through the novel to discover the whereabouts of Jamie.
Cara was another brilliant character, highlighting her difficulties and provoking sympathy from us readers. She was clearly struggling, yet the insight into a victim’s mind was incredibly insightful and interesting.
Ravi and Pip’s relationship was wonderful, their spark obvious as they bounced off one another. However, he didn’t appear to be as much as a present character in this particular sequel compared to the previous novel, as Connor, Jamie’s brother, takes his place as detective. He was another character I was fascinated reading about, learning another closer victim’s perspective and the after effects of a missing person’s relative. It was raw, heart wrenching, and made for incredible character development.
With the climax of the previous novel within each characters minds, its no surprise to discover that the characters are suffering, which made it a brilliant continuation from the last book. Pip and co. are struggling, they’re victims of trauma, and that realism was deeply appreciated from a reader’s perspective; it made the characters so much more believable.

The novel itself moves at an incredibly fast pace, but that’s not to say that there is content missing from the novel. Jackson uses effective techniques to keep the reader’s interest, drip-feeding us information whilst continuing to input data in many different media forms, from images to podcast scripts and social media posts. It made for an incredibly entertaining read.

Overall, I loved this sequel, just as much as I adored the first instalment. Jackson continues to give Young Adult readers what they want: true, raw crime and a teen detective who just doesn’t know when to quit.

5/5