A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

Was I unsure about this book when I started reading it? Yes.

Did I end up pre-ordering the second book about halfway through? Yes.

Did I get a little annoyed with the elaborate guilty confessions that were told to a high school student? Oh, yeah.

 

But this was a book that actually kept me up all night.

 

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder started as a senior capstone project for Pippa Fitz-Amobi. What started as a teenage murder/suicide soon became a double homicide in Pip's eyes. The whole town believed Sal Singh was behind the disappearance and murder of his girlfriend Andie Bell. They believed when he took his life several days later it was directly related to the guilt he felt. But Pip just can't take that story at face value. I mean, no one has ever even found Andie's body.

Pip is determined to find the truth. She speaks with many of Andie's and Sal's friends and families. She spends months investigating the secret life Andie was living; a secret older guy, drugs, late night hotel meet ups. There were so many questions that needed answers.

What I liked about this book was that a lot of what Pip and Ravi were doing for this project could have actually happened. With internet sleuthing on the rise, they genuinely could have found incriminating pictures on Facebook that would have proven Sal's innocence. Many cold cases are being solved this way, so I definitely enjoyed this line of investigating.

 

But, I did not enjoy Pip and Ravi breaking into someone's house to find a burner phone. I've said it a thousand times, you cannot break in and then take the evidence to the police. That literally ruins so much of the investigation. I also found it incredible annoying that several of the people involved just spill all their secrets to Pip in a several page long confession. That just.....no. It doesn't ever work like that.

 

But regardless, I'm obsessed with this series and cannot wait for Good Girl, Bad Blood to come in the mail!

 

Looking for the rest of the series?

Kill Joy (AGGGTM #0.5)

Good Girl, Bad Blood (AGGGTM #2)

As Good As Dead (AGGGTM #3)

Unfinished

 

I heard Priyanka was writing a book and immediately pre-ordered it.

I first met Priyanka through her breakthrough character, Alex Parrish on Quantico. I was then quickly caught up in her whirlwind romance with Nick Jonas, aka my fav JoBro. I spotted her again starring alongside her brothers/sister-in-laws, in the Jonas Brothers comeback music video, Sucker.

Needless to say, I've been enthralled.

But I hardly knew anything about her.

 

In her memoir, Unfinished, Priyanka leads us through her entire life. She grew up traveling around India, went to an all girls boarding school, moved to America for high school, and somehow ended up back in India....where she went on to win Miss India AND Miss World WHEN SHE WAS ONLY SEVENTEEN. She details every second of that incredible feat in this book. It was a rollercoaster of emotions and we were right there for the journey. We saw her thriving in her Indian film career, becoming an international sensation, landing the lead role in an American television series, losing her father, channeling that anger into an amazing role, meeting the love of her life, and becoming an ambassador for UNICEF.

Her entire story is filled with hard work and load of encouragement from those closest to her. She was acutely aware of how different her life was compared to other young girls in India. She knew she was loved and cherished while others were going without medical care, being forced out of school, and becoming child brides and homemakers. That alone drove Priyanka to make a difference in the lives of young women around the globe. Everyone deserves a chance to live out their dreams and she's determined to show these girls everything they can be.

Cracked Up to Be

I think Courtney Summers is going to be my new auto-buy author.

I debating reading her earlier work because I was afraid it wouldn't hold up compared to Sadie. I'm honestly amazed at how much I enjoyed Cracked Up to Be, which happens to be her debut novel.

As you all know, I'm a sucker for teen angst.

Now, this book was not all teen angst, it definitely deals with some hard-hitting topics such as alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, rape, even murder. When you take those topics and set it in a Catholic high school and make the main character an ex-cheerleader? Oh yeah, I'm going to devour it.

Parker Fadley wanted to be perfect, people expected her to be perfect. But after a wild night, that all changes. Parker begins showing up to class drunk, stop turning in assignments, even attempting suicide. Her weekly meetings with the school counselor, Grey, don't really seem to be helping. Parker thinks she can pull one over on her friends and families, even Grey. But in reality they all saw through her bullshit. Everyone just wanted the best for her but she didn't want it for herself.

Since I bought the re-released copy of Cracked Up to Be, I got to read Courtney Summers' authors note. She talked about how she never felt the need to shy away from tough topics. She had to fight for Parker to be as unlikable as possibly. But I never really saw Parker that way. Parker has a darkness, a bitchiness if you will. But the facade she puts up is obviously not her. I don't think she's unlikable, I think she's misunderstood. However, all of her friends cherished her. I think the true unlikable traits were what Parker felt about herself.

I love reading the lives Courtney Summers' complex characters.

I love that she has stayed true to her characters across all of her books.

I loved this.

Looking for other books by Courtney Summers?

Sadie

The Project

I'm The Girl

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

I have no idea why I waited so long to actually read this fantastic true crime book. I completely understand how and why it spent FOUR YEARS on the New York Times Bestseller List.

My friend loaned me her copy, just in time for me to move to Savannah myself.

I had been told many, many times that the first part of the book is incredibly dry and just sets the stage for the montage of people John Berendt meets his first year in Savannah. But my friend described it differently.... she said "It's kind of like the 'Southern Hello' where you can only say 'Hey, how's it going!' so many times before you're like 'oh my god why am I still greeting people.'"

Anyway, I made it about halfway through the book before I started asking myself when the true crime aspect of the book was going to start. Now, there are a few petty crimes mentioned beforehand. For instance, Joe Odom is a squatter and literally jumps from house to house giving tours, raking in money, and never paying a cent to live there. Oh, and he consistently writes bad checks and leaves parking tickets unpaid. But the best part of Joe's story? He's a lawyer.

But the main focus of the story was Jim Williams and Danny Hansford.

There's no question about it, Jim shot Danny. The question then becomes, was it self defense or premeditated? Was it a fight between friends or a lovers quarrel? There are so many questions that I don't believe we'll have answers to. Yet, after four trials, Jim Williams was finally found not guilty.

Honestly, the true crime aspect of the book was not near as entertaining as the rest of the book. John Berendt created a masterpiece based strictly on the types of people he met while living in Savannah for eight years. It was amazing seeing all of the different ways of life in such a small city. But what was even more amazing is that John somehow inserted himself into all of their lives. He was getting literally every side of the story and crafting this memoir turned true crime.

I'll definitely be getting myself a copy for my personal library!

Looking for other books featuring John Berendt?

Hiding My Candy

Till Murder Do Us Part

Till Murder Do Us Part

Imagine kissing your husband goodbye as he leaves for work, only to never see him again. Hours later, detectives show up with questions. His car was found with a bullet hole in the door and animal blood smeared on the seat. In his desk drawer, there is a book detailing how to fake your death......

Eric, now Steve begins a new life in Colorado.

Steve is new to the area, living in a hotel, has no family, and is on the run from the CIA. At least that's what he told Kathi when they started dating. She drank in the mysterious aura that surrounded him. She believed his stories, even when he said he was a hitman for the CIA. But there was some truth to his stories. He was on the run, not from the CIA, but from his wife and three children. But he also may have been trying to escape a murder charge as well.

Kathi started asking questions near their 12th wedding anniversary. She wanted to get him something sentimental as a gift and thought a high school year book would be perfect. Steve claimed everything he owned from his past life burned up in a house fire. So when she called his old high school, she was put in contact with one of his classmates who had never heard of Steve Marcum. She bought the yearbook anyway, and found a picture of young Steve....only his name was Eric Wright. Who on earth was she married to?!

I think the best thing to come from this crazy case, was that Kathi actually solved a 20+ year cold case based on small details Steve had given her over the years. She believed he had actually killed someone. When he described taking a man's life, she could see the truth in his lies.

Ramp Up to Murder

I honestly was not expecting this story to be about a professional skateboarder turned murder.

Mark Rogowski meets his future girlfriend Brandi and her best friend, Jessica at a warehouse party. The two immediately hit it off and quickly become the hottest couple on the scene. Mark is killing it in the vert competitions and Brandi is creating a name for herself in the modeling world. It's the perfect combination of kids with money who have no idea how to spend it.

Mark hits a rough patch when street-skating takes over. There's no money coming in, but hopefully a trip to Germany will help Mark become relevant once again. Instead, a near death experience leads him to Jesus and quickly sours his relationship with Brandi. What no one expected was the threatening calls and stalking that soon followed their break up. Mark was obsessive, possessive, and manipulative. He even managed to sneak into Brandi's gated community and take back all the gifts he gave her.

I know what you're thinking, he really murdered his ex? No, but he did rape and murder her one time bestie, Jessica. In a fraction of a second, Jessica was a stand in for Brandi, and he took out all of his anger on her. He eventually confessed and at this time has been behind bars for 27 years.

Looking for the rest of the Murder is Forever Series?

Murder, Interrupted

Home Sweet Murder

Murder Beyond the Grave

Murder Thy Neighbor

Murder of Innocence

You Should Have Left

What a delightfully, spooky, little read.

I was wandering my local bookstore last week when this cover caught my eye. I saw that it's written in letter format, which is my weakness. So I quickly flipped to the end of the book and was FASCINATED with the ending. A quick Goodreads search showed one of my friends giving it a four star rating.....that's all it took to convince me I needed my own copy.

 

You Should Have Left is a horror novella coming in with a whopping 114 pages.

A screenwriter rents a massive house for his family with the hopes that he'll be able to get some writing done while his wife and child enjoy the vacation. I know you're probably thinking that sounds like The Shining and honestly, you're not wrong. But this was spookier than The Shining to me. It's one of those books that's written so well that the paranoia doesn't set in until you finish reading it.

Told through letter/diary entries, we watch the main character begin losing grip with reality, which is interspersed with ideas for his upcoming movie sequel. He writes of pictures on walls, dreams in foretelling rooms, women with cold black eyes, spirits standing in this child's room. The halls go on forever, doors to the exact same room, reflections that literally scared the crap out of me.

It wasn't scary in the traditional sense, but it definitely was scary enough that I convinced myself someone was standing in my hallway while I was brushing my teeth this morning. The paranoia snuck up on me, but damn this was a good book.

Unacceptable

Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & The Making of The College Admissions Scandal gives us a definitive look into the complexity of the scandal. We learn about how Rick Singer gained clients through word of mouth. We see dozens of parents falling into his well scripted trap and agreeing to go along with his lies. Honestly, Singer was only caught because one of his coaches was arrested in relation to a different crime and let his name slip.

Rick Singer has been running the college admission game for the last 20 years. He started small in the early 2000's, telling parents and teens to lie about their race/ethnicity on their applications, they could always feign innocence once they've made it into their interview.

Once Singer realized there was a market for college admissions counselors, he was determined to be the best one out there. He created an organization called "The Key" and quickly began funneling "donations" through his business. He was known for utilizing the side door for college admissions, a sure fire way to guarantee students would get into schools such as USC, UCLA, University of Texas, even Yale and Harvard. He convinced parents that just donating money to the school of their child's dreams wouldn't be enough to get them an acceptance letter. They needed high ACT/SAT scores, which could be guaranteed with the low, low price of $15k. From there Singer and parents would create a donation/payment plan for his services, which often included toting the potential student as an athletic recruit.

It's insane to me how long Rick Singer got away with this scheme of his.

What's even crazier is these infamous parents had given their kids virtually every opportunity and still chose to bribe their way into college. Many of these children would have been fine getting into these schools on their own, their grades and extracurriculars were more than enough to be noticed by the admissions office. Yet their parents still wanted that guarantee, they wanted to know it was a sure thing.

 

My question, in the aftermath of all this.....

What do the schools do with the kids they've already accepted?

Many of these children had no idea of their parents illicit scheme. This book only mentioned the aftermath of one student, who with his non-fraud test scores, they still would have admitted him. Therefore, he was allowed to stay in school there.

 

It just blows my mind that this flew under the radar for so long.

 

Looking for other books on the College Admission Scandal?

Admission