“All children, except one, grow up.” The opening sentence of J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy has always delighted me. Part of me used to rebel against it; there would be one other, me, who would never truly become a grown-up. I would forever be able to remember what it was like to be a child, and would never give in to all those temptations of adulthood. A second part of me has always known that I was already no longer a child by the time I first read Barrie’s novel (I must have been eighteen at the time). Sometimes, however, I like to play make-belief, and this time I tried to do so while reading Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy. Want to know if I succeeded? Read on!
Part of me really wanted to love Good Girl, Bad Blood and As Good as Dead, part two and three of Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy. I was determined to embrace Pip as a heroine, because she’s smart, creative, and never gives up. I tried to go along with the fast-paced plot and the huge number of killers in a very small town. I even told myself that Ravi, Pip’s boyfriend, was lovingly loyal, instead of annoyingly soppy. However, I couldn’t convince myself.
While reading these books, which, admittedly, I finished within days because they did keep me engaged, I kept wondering whether I would have liked them if I had read them as a teenager. I probably would have. At that age, you tend not to overthink authors’ choices that much (if you’re like me, however, you do tend to overthink everything else at that age), and don’t worry about plot holes and unrealistic storylines, nor do you ever question a character’s decisions. At least, I never did when I had Pip’s age, almost twenty years ago. Now that I’m ancient, I do, and two things in particular truly bothered me about these books.
The first one is how Pip keeps outsmarting all the adults she knows, which is a recurring notion in Young Adult literature. Many books in this genre feature a strong-willed teenager who is somehow more intelligent and more intuitive than grown-ups, and overall a superior human being. Pip fits this trope to a T; she is the only one who can solve cases that have baffled seasoned detectives for years, and nobody but her sees the connection between different crimes. Strikingly, the adults never believe a word she says, so it’s all up to her to make sure evil doesn’t rear its ugly head again.
Speaking of evil, here’s the second aspect that annoyed me – and it’s this one that really proved that I am no longer the right audience for Jackson’s novels. The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series keeps mentioning the idea of good versus bad. Of course, we’re supposed to believe that Pip is good, while the murderers are bad. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, I guess. Also, there’s a bad rapist who lives in her town who walks free, which causes Pip to become so enraged that punishing him is now the only thing that matters (and suddenly, opportunity presents itself with the appearance of yet another serial killer). Apparently, Pip does not only consider herself superior to all adults, but also thinks the entire judicial system is beneath her. She does not sound like a good person, really.
And this is where it really started going wrong for me. Somehow, halfway through part three, Pip finds herself in a situation where she is abducted by a killer, manages to break free (duh), and then she is forced to choose between two options: call the police, or kill him. She chooses the second, calls her boyfriend for help who doesn’t even blink an eye when he sees the body, avoids being caught, and even makes sure the rapist is the one who goes down for it. What a story! I am sure I would have loved this story, had I first read it as a teenager.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I finished these books, and I find myself thinking about them several times a day. I am astounded by the fact that there are absolutely no repercussions for Pip; she covers up her own crime so perfectly that nobody suspects a single thing, that’s how clever she is. Furthermore, she appears to be completely unperturbed by the fact that she has ended someone’s life – for she’s a good girl, after all, doing a good thing by, what, by killing someone? Really?
I guess it bothers me more than it should. It’s only a book, isn’t it? Maybe I’m jealous of Pip and her miracle mind, and her way of living life without consequences. Maybe I wish that I could do things without taking responsibility for them. Maybe I want to have a boyfriend who would not question anything I did and would literally cover up a murder for me. Come to think of it, that sounds pretty boring, actually, as well as a bit scary. I think the real reason Jackson’s books bother me is because it gives such a bad precedent for young adults; even though she tries very hard to add facts and pop-culture details to these books to give them credibility, nothing about it is even remotely realistic. Pip’s world is a fantasy in very much the same way as Neverland.
Ah. I was wondering why I mentioned Peter Pan in the introduction to this blog. It turns out reading Jackson’s trilogy, to me, is all about growing up, or refusing to do so – and which book is better equipped to discuss these themes than Peter and Wendy? Peter fails to remember anything, and therefore will never learn or grow up. Neither will Pip, because she remains stuck inside her own frame of mind, and will therefore never find out the difference between good and bad.
I, however, like everyone else, have learned the hard way. Everything you do has consequences, and we’re doomed to learn from them. Or does that make us the lucky ones?
All children, except two, grow up. But that second one is definitely not me.
What do you think of Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series? Do you like crime fiction? Do you think it’s realistic that a young girl can solve crimes that veteran police officers can’t? Do you ever read Young Adult fiction? Do you think I’m making too much of all of it? Please let me know in the comments! Also, don’t forget to follow me for more book-related posts!
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