My Review of A Good Girl's Guide To Murder: Book + TV Show
Save this post for after you’ve watched the show—spoilers ahead!
A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder.
As you may have seen in my last post, I gave AGGGTM 3.5 stars. Here was my spoiler-free review:
This series seems to be everywhere I turn. I finally snagged the first book during Target Circle Week and went in with zero background but pretty high expectations.
I was pretty surprised this is categorized as a YA book, as some of the themes discussed (beyond the obvious, murder...) were pretty advanced, but the spice was incredibly low.
If this book had been in a first-person POV, not third, I think it would be closer to a 4.5-star read for me. The suspense woven into each chapter had me hooked throughout the entire book, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t get
a little spooked reading this late at night…
Unfortunately, I didn’t feel completely satisfied with the ending of the book, as the final reveal felt a little anticlimactic and rushed. I also had to suspend a good bit of disbelief to accept that the main character, as a high school student, would get herself into these dangerous situations with a murderer while working on a school project virtually NO ONE wanted her working on.
WARNING: Here is where the **spoilers** begin:
Midway through the book, I got a notification from Netflix that AGGGTM was dropping on August 1st as a mini-series. I had no idea a TV adaptation was coming when I picked up this book, but I became very excited for the opportunity to write this newsletter.
I am always skeptical of a book-to-television adaptation. I’m self-aware enough to know that I have way too high expectations and usually end up disappointed that the smallest details were left out.
That being acknowledged, this was a WILD adaptation.
First off, I was mistakenly under the assumption that I was sitting down to watch a movie, not a 6-episode arc that would span 270 minutes for the first book of the series.
There has been a lot of discourse about whether this was too much time or too little time to recreate the book. Personally, I’m team movie.
CASTING:
I loved Emma Myers in Wednesday, but I was not as in love with her casting as Pip Fitz-Amobi.
The rest of the casting fit the visuals I had in mind. I didn’t hate Zain Iqbal as Ravi Singh, but I felt absolutely zero chemistry between Ravi and Pip in the show. Their growing interest and love story was such a fun secondary plot point in the book, but it felt forced and awkward in the show.
Here are more detailed thoughts on how the characters were portrayed on Netflix:
CHARACTERS:
Pip Fitz-Amobi - One of the reasons Pip was able to get so far in her investigation in the book was her genuine motivation for wanting to clear Sal’s name and the sensitive nature in which she approached people. All of this went out the window in the show. This is one of the most common complaints I keep seeing about her character change, and the fact that everyone was so quick to disclose all their life’s secrets to a high schooler, while in the book she had to build trust and really work for it.
Ravi Singh - Ravi was such a fun character in the book. I enjoyed getting to know him, how he was impacted by his brother's alleged suicide, and the growing tensions between him and Pip. Ravi in the show was quite boring, and I felt no spark at all.
Andie Bell - While she didn’t get much screen time, considering she is the murder victim in question, there were a lot more flashback scenes in the show than I expected. Andie in the show was painted as a slightly troubled teen who had a lot of friends. In the book, she was a much darker figure who had complex and scandalous relationships, was a bully, sold drugs, and was cruel to her sister, which ultimately led to her death. Andie in the show garnered a lot more sympathy as a girl who was lost and wanted to get away.
Nat & Daniel da Silva - In my opinion, this is one of the biggest atrocities committed in the adaptation, turning Nat from a victim of Andie Bell, someone who was relentlessly bullied, had her n*des leaked… to Andie’s BEST FRIEND?? This was the moment I immediately became suspicious of this adaptation. This also destroyed all the context behind Daniel’s relationship with Andie and why he treated Pip the way he did.
Victor Amobi - I am including a quick line here because I CANNOT believe the TV show had Pip accuse her own dad of having an affair and killing Andie. This was cruel and unnecessary.
[Pip’s Dad and younger brother. Justice for Victor!!!! Source: Moonage Pictures/Sally Mais] Elliot Ward - Pip suspected Elliot from very early on in the book, making it spooky-suspenseful every time she saw him in class or went over to the Ward’s' house to hang out with Cara. In the show, he was accused a lot later and more casually, which was a major killer of the suspense. It also drove me crazy that the woman he kidnapped (under the assumption it was Andie) knew she wasn’t Andie all along, when in the book, she believed she was Andie. But to be honest, I didn’t love this plot point in the book that much to begin with.
PACING:
One of the main reasons the book didn’t get a crazy high rating from me was because I didn’t love how all of the unanswered questions were eventually revealed, even though the pacing was strong.
So many small twists and turns laced throughout the chapters made me never want to put it down, and there is no way I would have guessed the final killer, even if it did feel unsatisfying.
As a viewer, I was not motivated to go to the next episode. As a matter of fact, I planned to binge watch and post this the week it came out, but it took me a while to even get through all 6 episodes.
SUSPENSE:
Something that bothered me in the show was the very dark and suspenseful aesthetic they went for, from the lighting, to transitions, and a very interesting score...
With that in mind, we need to talk about the calamities. In the book, calamity parties were just wild high school parties at someones house, where the usual alcohol and drugs made their rounds. In the TV show, they really went for a Euphoria vibe… the parties were held in CAVES that somehow had production-style lighting and an inner network of rooms where drug dealers operated?? It was a lot.
Not to mention Pip’s dog disappearing and showing up dead was a major turning point in the book, and she grieved and was racked with guilt for a long time. It motivated her to finish the case. In the show, it’s mentioned for about 5 minutes, and they all move on.
Overall takeaways & ratings
I have read through a ton of Reddit threads and online reviews of this adaptation, and I feel safe in my overall review that this was not a great book-to-TV adaptation.
Here is my final score:
Book: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.⭐️
Netflix show: ⭐️⭐️
These are a few of my favorite reviews I read online about the TV show adaptation:
“If I hadn't read the books I probably would have loved this. But I did read the books - several times. Sadly, this series feels like the people who made it didn't read the books at all. More like they had the plot told to them and then they pieces it together from memory and got a vague resemblance to the books.” - annikajylland, IMDb
“Glad to see people have found the series a bit let down. (1) Book Pip was confident and smart and had AMAZING instincts. TV Pip just keeps looking nervous and scared?? (2) Book Pip has a full blown personality, her school is supportive and her friends are her cheerleaders. TV Pip is just relying on tips and has a weird side track of her parents’ marriage taking a break? (3) Book Pip and Ravi are perfect partners, romantic and detective. TV Pip and Ravi are just stilted and strange. (4) Show was too fast paced, spends too much time on surface motivations without looking at other characters or build up.
Overall 5/10 for the show and am hoping Season 2 is better.” - uglyduckling3388, Reddit
And this review from someone on Reddit “claiming” to be a child of the author:
“It was very challenging to adapt as a screenplay due to how slow paced the book is. As well as this the author made lots of changes, and has now gone online complaining about changes she was involved in making.
It’s ultimately a story built upon suspense, and it’s hard to adapt that into a screenplay that will be watched by people who know the ending.
My Mum wrote it, so please be kind (not saying you haven’t been). If you have any constructive criticism and things you want for season two I can pass it on.
The reviews are worrying her as she was given a hard job to adapt the screenplay into the structure given by the BBC. So please be kind. But things you want to be in season two would be very helpful.” - Afraid_Bat7397, Reddit’
Curious if, after this response, they will have multiple seasons based on the entire book series. Would you recommend reading the rest of this series? As of now, with my 3.5-star rating, I am not super motivated to finish the series...
What were your thoughts? Did you enjoy the adaptation?