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A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

by Holly Jackson · 2019

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is the debut young-adult mystery by British author Holly Jackson, first published in 2019. It follows Pippa "Pip" Fitz-Amobi, a meticulous, true-crime-obsessed sixth-form student in the small… more

First published 2019 · 433 pages · A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #1 · English

26 quotes ★ 4.28 (1,872,643) Mystery

Quotes from the Book

The people you love weren’t algebra: to be calculated, subtracted, or held at arm’s length across a decimal point.
619
But sometimes remembering isn’t for yourself, sometimes you do it just to make someone else smile. Those lies were allowed.
587
I'm not sure I'm the good girl i once thought i was . I've lost her along the way
434
He smiled, put his hands on the back of her neck, fingers in her hair, and leaned in to press his forehead against hers. He’d told her before that he did it to take away half her sadness, half her headache, half her nerves before her Columbia interview. Because half less of a bad thing meant there was room for half good.
350
women can be just as dangerous as men.
339
I’m irrationally serious.” Pip smiled, holding the Tupperware out to him. “And I made muffins.” “Like bribery muffins?” “That’s what the recipe said, yeah.
276
Pip wished she was strong enough, but she’d learned that she wasn’t invincible; she too could break.
266
What's wrong with me? ... I might seem like the ideal student: homework always in early, every extra credit and extra curricular I can get my hands on, the good girl and the high achiever. But I realized something just now: it's not ambition, not entirely. It's fear. Because I don't know who I am when I'm not working, when I'm not focused on or totally consumed by a task. Who am I between the projects and the assignments, when there's nothing to do? I haven't found her yet and it scares me. Maybe that's why, for my senior capstone project this year, I decided to solve a murder.
207
I’ve already learned my lesson here: when you catch someone lying about a murdered girl, you go ask them why.
188
They were each other’s crutch to lean on when life got too much to carry alone.
183
Your efficiency offends me.
171
He kissed her, and she glowed with that feeling. The one with wings. “You bring the rain down on them, Pip.” “I will.
146
We’re a team, remember. You and me.
141
As if they think I don’t already know. I came out of the womb knowing how to do academic references.
107
And in the dead silence of the night, Pip whispered, “Who’s taking the picture?
102
Because half less of a bad thing meant there was room for half good.
72
Maybe laughter was one of the very first things you lost after something like that.
66
I still think this is reckless and I’m crapping myself, but –’ he paused, flashing her a small smile – ‘we’re partners in crime after all. That means partners no matter what.
62
Can you stop bleeding all over the murder board, please
57
Pip knew a great many things; she knew that hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia was the technical term for the fear of long words, she knew that babies were born without kneecaps,
54
I don’t see the logic in putting a nose hole in your nose hole,” said Pip. “Another Pip quote for the books.” Cara feigned writing it down in midair. “What was the one that got me the other day?” “The sausage one.” Pip sighed. “Oh yeah,” Cara snorted. “So, Laur, I was asking Pip which pajamas she wanted to wear, and she just casually says, ‘It’s sausage to me.’ And didn’t realize why that was a weird response.” “It’s not that weird,” said Pip. “My grandparents from my first dad are German. ‘It’s sausage to me’ is a German saying; just means ‘I don’t care.
52
She was on a high cliff edge somewhere between laughing and crying and screaming.
49
You go around asking dangerous questions, girl, you’re going to find some dangerous answers.
47
Hello, pickle!” her dad said loudly as Pip and Cara made their way downstairs. “Lauren and I have decided that I should come to your kilometer party too.” “Calamity, Dad. And over my dead brain cells.
44
I found these statistics: 80% of missing people are found in the first twenty-four hours. 97% are found in the first week, and 99% of cases are resolved in the first year. That leaves just 1%. 1% of people who disappear are never found. And just 0.25% of all missing persons cases have a fatal outcome.
41
Ravi hated her, but he would be safe now.
38

Did you know?

  • It was Holly Jackson's debut novel.
  • The original UK edition was published by Electric Monkey on 2 May 2019.
  • The story is set in the fictional English town of Little Kilton; the US edition relocates it to Fairview, Connecticut.
  • The book uses an unconventional format that mixes narration with Pip's project logs, interview transcripts and evidence lists.
  • Its popularity was amplified significantly by BookTok.
  • A BBC/Netflix television adaptation starring Emma Myers premiered in 2024.

About Holly Jackson

Holly Jackson (born 1992) is a British author who grew up in Buckinghamshire and studied literary linguistics and creative writing at the University of Nottingham. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder was her debut novel, and she has since become one of Britain's bestselling crime writers.

More about the author →

About the book

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is the debut young-adult mystery by British author Holly Jackson, first published in 2019. It follows Pippa "Pip" Fitz-Amobi, a meticulous, true-crime-obsessed sixth-form student in the small town of Little Kilton, who reopens a closed case for her senior capstone project. Five years earlier, schoolgirl Andie Bell vanished and was presumed murdered by her boyfriend Sal Singh, who then apparently killed himself. Convinced Sal was innocent, Pip teams up with his younger brother Ravi to re-investigate, compiling interviews, suspect maps and production logs as the inquiry pulls her into the town's buried secrets.

The novel works as both a propulsive whodunit and a study of small-town reputation, prejudice and the cost of seeking truth. Its distinctive structure interleaves conventional narration with Pip's project logs, transcripts and evidence lists, inviting readers to play detective alongside her. Themes of justice, wrongful blame, the unreliability of public assumptions, and the toll investigation takes on an ordinary teenager run throughout, with the amateur-sleuth framing giving the book a documentary, true-crime texture.

The book became a major commercial success, a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, and spawned a trilogy plus a prequel novella. It won the British Book Award for Children's Fiction in 2020 and was named a best book of the year by Kirkus, School Library Journal and Booklist; Kirkus praised it as "a treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense." Boosted heavily by BookTok, it was adapted into a 2024 BBC/Netflix television series starring Emma Myers.

Key characters

  • Pippa "Pip" Fitz-AmobiProtagonist; a true-crime-loving student investigating the case for her school project
  • Ravi SinghSal's younger brother who joins Pip's investigation to clear his brother's name
  • Andie BellThe girl whose disappearance and presumed murder is at the center of the case
  • Sal SinghAndie's boyfriend, blamed for her death, whose apparent guilt Pip doubts
  • Elliot WardA local history teacher entangled in the case's buried truths

Book details

First published
2019
Length
433 pages
Series
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder #1
Reading time
26 hours
Genre
Mystery
Goodreads rating
4.28 (1.9M ratings)

Critical reception

  • Won the British Book Award for Children's Fiction in 2020.
  • Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal and Booklist.
  • Became a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, with the series spending over a year on the NYT list.
  • Kirkus Reviews called it "a treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense."

The buzz

Series & reading order

  1. 1 A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
  2. 2 Good Girl, Bad Blood
  3. 3 As Good As Dead

Movie & TV adaptations

  • IMDb
    A Good Girl's Guide to Murder 2024

    BBC/Netflix television series starring Emma Myers as Pip.

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