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Critic badge - Review of a Book

 A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder


I’ve chosen to review this book for part of the Critic badge, but with a difference. This review will be of the book and I will compare it with the recent TV adaptation.

I read the book a year or two ago after receiving it for Christmas from my husband. I have since noticed that when marketed it features in the Young Adult section, but this is not detrimental to my enjoyment of the book. I was given this book, and the sequel, and last Christmas I received the third in the series, and the prequel book. I enjoyed A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder a lot - I liked the illustrations in it - the notes that Pippa made, and the transcripts of her podcasts. It all added to the feeling that there was a lot of work going on for a school project - a lot of research being done. One niggle about the book was the size of the font in some of the notes / picture sections - and this could easily be attributed to me getting older!😂 I did notice that the smaller font, especially in grayscale, was difficult to read - even with glasses; if there is an illustration of the type used in the book, I believe it is there for a reason, rather than to just break up the text on the page. I was scouring these photo like illustrations for further information and clues - as I really enjoy working out puzzles. It was great to have an picture to indicate a recording, and to have the transcript of Pippa’s podcast.

In my mind, I saw Pippa as a head-girl type of young woman, quite out-going, determined, - not loud and pushy, but head-strong, strong-willed - and one who was not afraid to put herself out there; as I read I pictured a girl who was happy, cheerful, sure of herself. This is where the TV adaptation did not meet up to my expectations. Pippa in the TV series was not at all how I pictured her - I didn’t feel that she was the strong character that I’d read in the books. The house she lived in didn’t match the home I had pictured as I read through the book (yes, perhaps I should read it again). The story was there, - but what seemed to be quite a big feature of the book - the podcast - A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, was barely mentioned. This may have been a deliberate effort - so that the series did not look like a British school girl’s version of Only Murders in the Building. 

The television series lasted for 6 episodes, of 45 minutes each; this was enough time to give more weight to the podcasts and the ‘murder board’ in my opinion. The episodes started immediately - without any re-cap, which I found a little confusing; I started wondering if we had missed an episode, missed something at the end of a previous episode. This style of editing probably works very well for people who binge watch series (and I confess that when watching programmes on my own, I will binge watch them - but on the occasions of watching this series, I was watching it with my husband, and we limited ourselves to one episode a night).

Taking the series by itself, it was enjoyable and took us through the story, with a conclusion at the end of the series. Should the series be renewed, I’m sure that I will watch it, but with different eyes - I will watch it with the view to it being its own story, rather than being an adaptation of the book. It is always a risk watching a TV or film version of a book you have enjoyed - you risk your version of the storyworld being distorted; as long as you can accept this, there is no reason why you can’t enjoy an adaptation for its own sake.

The book I rate at 10/10, and the TV series I rate at 8/10.

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