Good Girl, Bad Blood: The sequel to A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

 

A couple of weeks ago, I read A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson and wrote a blog post about it and my thoughts. As I was scavenging for a book to write about, I found out that there is a sequel to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder called Good Girl, Bad Blood. I’ve read quite a number of sequels in the past, and to be completely honest, I’m usually unsatisfied with the sequels. But I decided to once again give the sequel of a really good book a chance.  

        In the famous sequel by Holly Jackson; Good Girl, Bad Blood, the main character, Pip, is apparently no longer a detective like she was in the first novel. She and Ravi (another main character) had solved a murder case in the previous book, and Pip swears that her detective days are long gone. Even though she had a successful podcast where she talked about true crime and what she figured out while investigating the murder case. But little does Pip know what’s coming.  

The town of Fairview hosted a memorial anniversary for the deaths of Sal Singh and Andie Bell (two characters from the last novel). During this memorial, Jamie Reynolds, the brother of Pip’s friend, goes missing. The police are not doing anything about it, so Pip decides to step up and do it herself. Pip is now drawn into another investigation, and this time, everybody is listening.  

I do want to mention that there are trigger/content warnings that I’d like to point out. In Good Girl, Bad Blood, there is drug use, mostly nonconsensual; there is also the death of a child in this novel, as well as gun violence and talk about rape. I want people to keep this in mind if they think about reading the novel.  

Now, Good Girl, Bad Blood, is also told in a third-person perspective of Pip. Jackson again incorporates mixed media into the novel. What I personally like about this novel is that it has several instances of foreshadowing. After I finished reading this novel, I could go back to pinpoint things, it’s subtle so it doesn’t spoil the whole story.  

My final thoughts on Good Girl, Bad Blood are that it really surprised me. It exceeded my expectations. I never thought I’d ever find a book series in which the sequel of the original was better, but here I am. It had all of my favorite things from the first novel and made it so much better. I love the way Holly Jackson wrote this and made the plot of the story even better and she still had me on the edge of my seat.  

I would definitely recommend this novel to all the mystery lovers out there. I would usually recommend to also read A Good Girls Guide to Murder before Good Girl, Bad Blood for context and background information like in most book series, but I do not think it is essential to do so. Good Girl, Bad Blood includes the plot from A Good Girls Guide to Murder at the very beginning and for 10% of the novel. I loved this novel and will be reading the last book of this famous series that Holly Jackson did such good job of writing.  

Thank you so much for reading 

- Kimberly Rivas