Blog Tour + Review: As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson

The highly anticipated, edge-of-your-seat conclusion to the addictive A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series that reads like your favorite true crime podcast or show. By the end, you’ll never think the same of good girls again.

Pip’s good girl days are long behind her. After solving two murder cases and garnering internet fame from her crime podcast, she’s seen a lot.

But she’s still blindsided when it starts to feel like someone is watching her. It’s small things at first. A USB stick with footage recording her and the same anonymous source always asking her: who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? It could be a harmless fan, but her gut is telling her danger is lurking.

When Pip starts to find connections between her possible stalker and a local serial killer, Pip knows that there is only one choice: find the person threatening her town including herself–or be as good as dead. Because maybe someone has been watching her all along…

• Title: As Good As Dead
• Author:  Holly Jackson
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication Date: September 28, 2021
• Genre: Young Adult, Mystery/Thriller 
• Source: Netgalley, publisher sent ARC (Digital ARC via Netgalley / Publishers. ARC provided by Publisher/Author in exchange for an honest review)
  Targeted Age Range: Young Adult
• Content Warnings: Character suffering from PTSD, police, mentions/discussions of rape, drugs, death/murder, blood, mentioned animal death, death threats, stalking, kidnapping, fire
• Rating: ★★★★★

When I first read Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, I was instantly hooked. This series appealed to everything that I love. A strong and flawed, sometimes “unlikeable” female protagonist, a gripping mystery, and fast-paced storytelling. Since then I have been absolutely hooked on this series and am sad that As Good As Dead is the finale. I truly love this story and these characters, so it’s hard to have to say goodbye.

In my personal opinion, the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series is the best murder mystery series I have read in recent years, and As Good As Dead was a perfect conclusion. I stayed up until 4:30 am reading because I simply could not put it down; I needed to know how this series would end. And the first words out of my mouth after I finished reading were, “Oh. My. God.” Holly Jackson has crafted an incredibly complex and detailed story that keeps you on your toes right off the bat. As it’s my favorite genre, I read a lot of murder mysteries. I’ve read some truly amazing ones over the years, but I have never been as breathless while reading as I was while reading As Good As Dead. In fact, I don’t think I relaxed until I read the very last page.

If I used Taylor Swift songs to describe this book (as I often do) I would absolutely go with No Body, No Crime, and Mad Woman. While there have always been dark elements to the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series (obviously), As Good As Dead takes a much darker turn, and truthfully, I love it. I think that was absolutely the right way to go. This series has always had incredibly high stakes so of course, the finale would have the highest stakes and darkest material yet.

After the events of Good Girl, Bad Blood, it only makes sense that Pip would be GOING THROUGH IT. She’s dealt with some incredibly traumatic things that really no one, let alone an 18-year-old, should have to go through and it’s really affected her. My heart broke for her while reading about her PTSD, her guilt, anxiety, and fears. Really, I just wanted to give her a big hug.

I think that my favorite thing about As Good as Dead is how it tied together the entire series. In the end, everything came back to the original case that Pip solves in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Everything was brought full circle, and it all made sense. As new clues were dropped throughout this book, you could see how everything tied together and because of that, the events of this book made perfect sense. You can tell that Jackson really took the time to make sure that each new piece of information not only fit the current story being told, but that it also aligned with what she had established in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and Good Girl, Bad Blood. 

I absolutely put on my sleuthing hat while reading this one, and I think that Pip would’ve been proud. Early on, I had my suspicions as to who was behind Pip’s stalking, and the more clues that were revealed, the more convinced I was that my suspicions were correct. When the truth came out I just said, “I KNEW IT!” and felt SO SMART and then I went, “wait, there’s still a solid chunk of the book left, what the heck happens?!” and then it was an even crazier rollercoaster of emotions than it already was. The entire last half of the book I was basically the human equivalent of the Raven Symone gif from That’s So Raven where she’s chewing gum looking all shifty-eyed because I was SO ON EDGE. I’m talking, shoulders tense, heavy breathing, fidgeting – all of it. I was 100% invested from start to finish. 

Another thing that I absolutely love about this series is how it’s told through multiple forms of media. I love the interview transcripts, emails, journal logs, and photos that are used throughout the series. It adds so much to the storytelling and allows the readers to feel like they’re working on the case with Pip. For me, all of those things add to the atmosphere of the book and help me fully immerse myself in the story. I also would 100% listen to Pip’s podcast, especially since I’ve become obsessed with true crime podcasts as of late!

If you love a good murder mystery and haven’t read the A God Girl’s Guide to Murder series, you have to read it. If you’ve read the series and have been eagerly awaiting As Good As Dead like I have, I promise, you will not be disappointed. This is the perfect conclusion to this addictive story and I know I’ll be revisiting it many times!

Links for As Good As Dead: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound | Amazon
Barnes and Noble | Book Depository | Indigo