As Good As Dead Review

As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson

Nikki says: I was so excited to dive into the third book in this trilogy but I actually struggled with it quite a bit at first. Pip is struggling herself at the start of the book; following the events at the end of the second book she’s suffering with PTSD and this sets quite a bleak and gloomy tone to the start of the book. Pip’s searching for a way to ‘fix herself’ and get back to ‘normal’ when she realises that she has a stalker. Now, I worked out who this stalker was very early on (and looking at other reviews I see that I’m not alone). Normally this would be ok and I’d still be eager to see the protagonist work it out and prove me right, but something about this was just very frustrating. It was staring Pip in the face and she just couldn’t see it. Maybe this is deliberate and a reflection of Pip’s state of mind but I seriously considered not finishing the book. The only reason I carried on was that it seemed to be narrowing in on the ‘villain’ and I was only half way through so was curious to see what happened in the rest of the book. And I’m really glad I did.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers but this book definitely went down a dark path. Pip is forced to make some big moral choices and, whether right or wrong, these lead her to a new dark place. Again, I know other reviewers really didn’t like this new direction, but I found it ‘refreshing’. It felt good to be shaken out of the usual murder mystery format, to have to ask new ‘what would I do’ questions and try to figure out how to feel about all this. I was most intrigued to find out how Holly Jackson would resolve things as there was no possible clean, tidy ending with happy ever afters for the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ all locked away.

Ultimately, this book wasn’t as good as the first two but only because it was so different. It took the format we knew from the first two books and turned it on it’s head. The book certainly made a memorable end to the trilogy and I’m really glad I read it. I know I’ll still be thinking about it for quite a while yet.

⚠️ kidnapping, murder, very morally grey character choices!

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Book 3 of 3 - complete

Genre: YA Crime