As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson
Genre: YA Mystery
Blurb (on back of book):
The highly-anticipated finale to the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series, the instant bestsellers that read like your favorite true crime podcast or show. By the end of this mystery series, you'll never think of good girls the same way again... Pip is about to head to college, but she is still haunted by the way her last investigation ended. She’s used to online death threats in the wake of her viral true-crime podcast, but she can’t help noticing an anonymous person who keeps asking her: Who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears?
Soon the threats escalate and Pip realizes that someone is following her in real life. When she starts to find connections between her stalker and a local serial killer caught six years ago, she wonders if maybe the wrong man is behind bars.
Police refuse to act, so Pip has only one choice: find the suspect herself—or be the next victim. As the deadly game plays out, Pip discovers that everything in her small town is coming full circle . . .and if she doesn’t find the answers, this time she will be the one who disappears. .
MY OPINION: ***
This one took me years to get through. Maybe it's because I just started college the day I started reading this book or maybe it's because I simply wasn't a fan. I'm not sure. It just took a lot of self-will to pick it up (or pull it up on my phone) and start reading.
I wouldn't say it was the most disappointing ending to a series. It had the same flair and mystery aspect it originally started with. I just think my main issue with it was that every single character was a brand new person and I might as well have been reading a stand-alone mystery. I 100% understand character development, as I said in my review of the second book, but character development does not equate to brand new person.
Pip was never my favorite character to begin with but in this one, she was a whole different person and for that, I actually liked her better. She is dealing with a lot of PTSD from the previous book's events and so has resorted to drugs and lying to try to deal with her trauma. I liked seeing this side of Pip, even though it was obviously a very negative situation, because it gave her character a depth beyond the "quirky, weird girl who solves mysteries" that we kind of have been stuck with so far.
Ravi was perfect as usual and I liked that even though he definitely changed from the first book, he still carried with him the same values and the same love for Pip and his family that he always had. I loved the team that he and Pip made and it was truly an adorable pairing. I wouldn't go so far as to say they were in my top favorite book couples or anything but they weren't nauseating or anything by far.
This book centers around a stalker who is haunting Pip, though nobody other than Ravi seems to believe her. When she discovers a haunting link with her stalker and a previous old serial killer, she sets off on yet another crime mystery to solve. This one was definitely a different kind of mystery in that she didn't actively search out or be recruited to try to solve some crime. Instead, this one was solely meant for Pip and she was forced to deal with it or... well, die.
I found this one to be very very outlandish. I was in disbelief the entire time and not in a good way. It just didn't feel real or feasible and I was sad because I was expecting it to at least partially make sense. But no, this one was very very out there and almost to the point of being ridiculous.
The "plot twist" that everyone told me was really amazing and cool was very predictable. I haven't even read a lot of murder mysteries and even I genuinely saw that one coming from a mile away. I was expecting it to change or not be what I thought but no, that was the plot twist. Very very obvious.
The ending was also very unsatisfying. You don't really get a full conclusion and since this is the last book of the series, it's very aggravating to not really have that finality. I guess that's how life is but this is supposed to be fiction, not reality. If you're going to be so far out there for the rest of the book, let's give it some final conclusion, how about that. I'm not going to spoil anything but I was just in shock. The Pip we knew from the first book is long gone.
I think this is one of those controversial endings to a beloved series that you will either love or hate. Unfortunately, I fall somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't say I hated this book because once it got going, I did end up enjoying it. But it definitely wasn't what I wanted or expected it to be. I would still definitely recommend reading it if you've gotten this far because it does wrap things up and come full circle as much as possible.
Main Character: Pip
Sidekick(s): Ravi, friends, etc
Villain(s): Murder, crime, etc
Mystery Elements: This book was a murder mystery.
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