A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
The fact that this is a debut novel still blows my mind. I don’t think a book, or even an entire series, has enraptured me as much as this. I’d read a few mystery-thrillers before this, but A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is what really made me fall in love with the genre. Every tiny detail had a purpose and piecing it all together is probably the most fun I’ve ever had reading a book. Not that any part of this is really that guessable. I did figure out one plot twist very early on but even that didn’t play out exactly how I thought it would.
Prepare yourself to absolutely love Pip and Ravi. They are everything and I won’t give any spoilers for book 3, which is stupid to talk about in a post about debut books, but their last ‘interaction’ made me smile and cry at the same time.
I’ve been itching to re-read this recently. Has it been long enough since my first review to do a re-read review? Probably not but it would be fun to re-read this after watching the show. I’m somewhat interested in the audiobook as it’s a multi-narrator production. But when I listened to the sample, I was a little thrown by how mature the voice is for Pip. I personally find it confusing when adults narrate teens in audiobooks. I’m currently listening to a book that’s supposed to be from the perspective of a 16-year-old but the narrator sounds like they’re at least mid-thirties. Am I being too picky? Probably. Maybe I’ll give it a go.
Synopsis: Everyone in Fairview knows the story.
Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.
But she can’t shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?
Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn’t want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.
Tweet Cute by Emma Lord
Now, I thought this was a romance. Which I think it actually is marketed as, but I think the characters had more platonic energy rather than romantic. If you view the book from this perspective, it’s great. This is a serious slowburn, which I don’t think translates very well in standalones, hence why I prefer them as friends. However, when they do finally kiss (slight spoiler but also not really) it is pretty cute and you do feel like they have been working up to that point. Pepper and Jack have some seriously good banter, which does turn flirty at times.
This may be the only book where I didn’t hate that it used the miscommunication trope. I actually hoped the Twitter war would have stayed anonymous for much longer to make the trope a little more interesting. But maybe I would have hated that whole situation if they did actually ‘betray’ each other. Who knows? I think I was just enjoying them bashing each other a little bit too much. It’s all fairly harmless.
The big ‘plot twist’ of the whole book isn’t actually too exciting as it’s introduced way too late but just reading about the antics Pepper and Jack got up were enough to make me really enjoy this book.
Synopsis: Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming ― mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account.
Enter Jack, class clown and constant thorn in Pepper’s side. When he isn’t trying to duck out of his obscenely popular twin’s shadow, he’s busy working in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business that holds his future might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.
All’s fair in love and cheese ― that is, until Pepper and Jack’s spat turns into a viral Twitter war. Little do they know, while they’re publicly duking it out with snarky memes and retweet battles, they’re also falling for each other in real life ― on an anonymous chat app Jack built.
As their relationship deepens and their online shenanigans escalate ― people on the internet are shipping them?? ― their battle gets more and more personal, until even these two rivals can’t ignore they were destined for the most unexpected, awkward, all-the-feels romance that neither of them expected.
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Like this post? Why not read this one too: Books I’m Removing From My Physical Shelves #17