As Good as Dead, the conclusion to the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder trilogy is a hit or miss novel. I am shocked to have placed this novel in this category but I truly found it to be a mixed bag and thankfully, I know others did too. It is my opinion that the novel does not compare quality-wise to the previous novels and surprisingly also contains a disappointing plot. If I did not take into consideration other perceptions, this would be in the not worth your time category despite it being the end to what I previously considered to be a fabulous series. As you can see, this novel was so far from what I expected, I had to put it in the Hit or Miss category - you must decide if it is worth your time.

The novel is worth reading if you have read the previous two as it provides a permanent ending to a series you no doubt loved and could even be a permanent ending you appreciate, based on how you perceive the plot. The writing is still solid and provides you as a reader to ask multiple times what you would do in certain situations but overall, despite certain high points and great stylistic writing the novel is the weakest of the three. If you read As Good as Dead please come back and discuss the novel with me as I am highly curious to hear your thoughts on As Good as Dead and where you fall on the spectrum regarding if it was or was not worth your time which is something I personally am still pondering.

No comment. Okay, tiny comment. The storyline can be split into two parts: before Pip discovers the identity of her stalker and after. Two drastically different scenarios and storylines are shown in this novel and all you need to know is, they are different from how the first two were written and again, could be something you either adore or hate dependent on where you wanted Pip's storyline to go. Just know, it is definitely an interesting and occasionally detail-heavy plot.

There is character assassination in this novel. I can't elaborate without spoiling the novel but certain characters in this piece are not who they were previously. Again, this may be something you appreciate but if you saw my review of Good Girl, Bad Blood - the expansion I anticipated did not occur and threw me off the characters this time around.

In my opinion, the closing of this trilogy was a major disappointment. I am upset with how this novel panned out and the conclusion ruined the story for me. Choosing to read this will either go two ways - wonderfully or terribly and I hope it is the former for you. I do recommend reading this to finish the story and predominately recommend having an open mind as it will not be what you anticipate and I really just want to hear what you think about it because that ending, and the novel as a whole, was definitely a hit or miss.

I cannot believe I am about to say this but, As Good as Dead was almost a DNF. What?!? I persisted because I wanted to finish the trilogy and complete my thoughts on the story and also because I believed the narrative would be a poignant story about Pip recovering from PTSD - not destroying her life and framing someone else for murder. As soon as Pip was kidnapped, the novel spiralled and for me, never recovered. The storyline was nothing like the previous two novels and neither were the characters. I adored Pip. I found Pip to be a feisty character who would push boundaries to uncover the truth except, I never thought she would cross the boundary of murder.

What ticks me off about her covering up a murder is that it ruined her. Again, Pip was portrayed as a steadfast individual whom previously would have skirted the law to reveal Jason as the DT killer, not completely and utterly break it by killing him. I sat on this review for a while to see if I would change my opinion, to see if I would understand the narrative shift and why Pip thought murdering, she is a murderer, was a good choice. The whole premise of the first novel was to prove Sal's accusation as false so for her not to only kill someone but then frame another character is insane and not to mention also forget about Billy, the whole reason she started looking at the DT case is character assassination after character assassination. It ruined Pip. She was willing to let an "honest" man rot in prison, he still was a rapist, to save herself and that is insane. I excepted her to be smarter to catch both Max and Jason but instead she put her friends in danger, isolated her family, ruined her relationship with Ravi, killed someone, and framed another.

I loathed Ravi's involvement in the coverup. He was such a passive character in the second-act, I adored who he was in the first-act - a devoted and understanding boyfriend who was helping his girlfriend grieve and recover but the second-act? He was a co-conspirator in murder.

I don't care if he did it for Pip. These are two young teenagers who have only dated each other, they most likely aren't each other's forever partners, and the intensity around their devotion to each other again assassinated their characters and relationship. I can't believe Ravi was willing to do whatever Pip said regardless of his own opinion. I mean, his brother was framed for murder and he's cool with framing another person whilst simultaneously letting another rot in prison? C'mon, this is getting ridiculous now.  He was so strong in the first two novels and he dissolved into nothing. Yes, they had cute banter but I don't care - they were ruined for me and the plot was so improbable that I wish I had never read this novel.

I wish I could still see Pip as the character she was and I don't care if the point of the trilogy was for Pip to transform from an individual who believed in the law, to someone who didn't, and eventually became someone who actively went against it as a type of character arc of trust to abandonment. No! There was zero prelude to that extreme abandonment, I mean yeah - the police screwed over Pip more than once, but does automatically mean let's murder someone because the police won't catch them? Seems like a moral grey area for a real life debate class, not a YA mystery in which the protagonist was always portrayed as a moral character. Also, other police stations exist, why didn't she go to any of them? Or post on her podcast that something suspicious was happening? There were other solutions before murder.

Combined with the character abandonment which as you can see from the long ramblings of my thoughts, which are again my own personal opinion, upset me greatly. I also found the novel superfluous in detail. The only character I liked was Nat deSilva; I understood her willingness to help Pip coverup an evident murder but otherwise, my overall sentiment regarding this novel is disappointment. And that is what it is. I hope this ending and novel is what you wanted and for me personally, I won't reread this series and that's all for As Good as Dead and the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder trilogy.