The Intriguing Structure of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder By Emma Hendricks

   

In the book the author uses comedy and mystery to intrigue the reader. There is also a good sad to funny ratio, with there being a lot of sad moments within the chapters they are evened out with a good amount of comedy. As for the mystery, you can find that throughout the book as Pip, the narrator tries to prove the “murderer” Sal to be innocent of killing his girlfriend. We find out that Sal is dead as well on a count of everyone believing he committed suicide. The author gives us a reading on what is going on in Pip’s mind and how she thinks about every detail of the case and writes it all down for her Senior Capstone Project. This was a cool way to read because it truly makes the book interesting and keeps you hooked on the story. It feels like you are helping unveil the mystery with Pip as she talks to each person and finds new leads each time to follow up on. Her drama and thoughts feel like they mesh together and become your own too. You feel so immersed in a mystery that you want to keep reading to find the next missing piece, that when you put the book down it feels wrong too. Like the mystery has come to a stop.

For Pip, she is the only narrator so we don’t get any insight on other characters and what they feel, rather we get an understanding on how Pip feels they feel. She will tell us how she sees the person expressing their emotion which isn’t an exact science and can complicate things if we don’t know what the other person is thinking. But, we can see certain flashbacks, but not with the usual definition of flashbacks. Instead of actually going back to the time and seeing the dialogue during that moment, we get information from people talking about the time and all the details they remember from that moment, so basically memories. Such as, “On Sunday afternoon me, Sal and his friends volunteered to help put up some missing posters…” Ravi explained what he remembered from years ago to the best of his ability. So in a way they are flashbacks but at the same time they are not. And for setting, the story is mostly set in the same place. Occasionally, there will be somewhere new but it's always the same town and normally it is set at Pip’s house because that is where she works on her Capstone project.

Along with all of these parts, the book is set up in an interesting way. Instead of just a novel, paragraphs through and through. The book will have your usual paragraphs and dialogue along with parts of interviews and Pip’s research paper. Like for the research paper every entry starts with “Pippa Fitz-Amobi” along with whatever the date is and then “Capstone Project Log—Entry…”). As you are reading and find that Pip is going to do an interview you get the transcript of the interview. Seeing this new set up immediately sucked me into the book. It made me feel like I helped conduct the interview and was there listening in on it. Another part of the story was seeing what Pip wrote down for the research paper. Every detail, note and lead for the investigation I got to see because Pip had an idea and put it down on paper. As an example Pip thinks, “I can’t believe I’m actually going to type this, but maybe Naomi had something to do with Andie… Or maybe I’m making something out of nothing. Either way, I think she has to go on the list” this shows what is going on in Pip’s mind by seeing her write it down on the paper. So I could keep all the leads in one place and could look back to what was written down and get back on track with Pip’s mindset.

Overall, the idea of the book’s set up is a fun and exciting way to execute a book. It keeps you interested and engaged, so you feel like you’re in the book solving the mystery with Pip. Every page has a new clue and adventure waiting for you to help uncover it. Everything about it is great besides there only being one point of view, being Pip’s. Even though it may fit the book better, it would be nice to understand what is actually going on in other characters' minds instead of just getting a guess from Pip. And finally the comedy and mystery really adds an extra piece to the book to wrap it all up in a neat little package.