As Good As Dead, by Holly Jackson, is a downward spiral, a HEFTY psychological smorgasbord of deception and murder, and the story ends like a deranged coyote splat to bits on a congested motorway after the rains.

But it rains.

Between 50—65% I’d written this off as a poorly terminated 3-star mediocre finale that toyed with improperly counselled mental illness, mocked the importance of sleep and adequately prescribed medicines—both which help combat impulses and responses in gun-violence victims and rape survivors—and I was hoping for redemption in some nice YA-novel sort of way…

…and then I read the rest and changed my mind.

I admit, there is a large chunk in the centre that causes severe eye-rolling, a few cringes (especially in the apparent disrespectful/derisive treatment of mental illness…but wait for it…), and produces the urge to smack Pip hard to her senses. It’s off-putting for many many pages. It tempts the reader to quit for quite a quare chunk. I say: read on, let the story happen, let it roll, let it drag you down, down, down…

It might seem like you have it all figured out (as was the intention of the author in delivering that simplistic red-herring with the DT suspect—obviously), but by the end, this story surprises. I get the feeling not too many cosy murder mystery readers or YA crime-to-romance lovers fancied the turn this took. But murder is not cosy and romance is not love. This murder-mystery love-story gets dark, bloody, twisted, goes completely criminal, and explores the deepest devotion of all kinds of love. If you’re looking for a loose-ends-tied finish with a satisfying sigh and the relief of a win-win in a last page kiss— well… look away.

I thought it was kinda brilliant and all cheeky; a whiplash turn from the expected (boring) norm in the genre, a complete bottom-dropped-out descent to the mouth-puckering finish.

Oh, how people change…the cataract progression of these characters was disgusting. Delightful. The inner workings of Pip’s damaged psyche was—well, at times, it was almost too much to take: a bit too much schizophrenic drama and a try too poetic and literary in such fast-paced thriller-style writing (hence the 4-stars, not 5)—but overall, it was a decent imitation of what the crack of trauma does to a mind, coupled with the rapid descent into keeping multiple secrets and juggling one more lie. Such mental distress internally destroys while it externally deteriorates. Piece by piece, Pip’s sanity and dreams become sacrificed to the upkeep of the insane nightmarish path she chooses.

The girl’s good conscience jumps off a cliff in instalment number three, a gory, blood-bath, free-for-all MESS. The ‘good girl’ wilfully derails herself in a split-second decision; she chooses one kind of justice over another. And I wonder, with a similar history and trauma, how many ‘good’ girls would choose to do the same, given the opportunity…? Pip’s climactic decision splits the plot (and the philosophical direction of this trilogy) into an investigation of two trains travelling the same track: the exposé of a failing system of justice and the rogue pursuit of ‘true’ justice at the expense of several truths people in polite and comfortable positions of power don’t want to hear.

Additionally, Pip has to choose who she can trust, and when you’re that broken, the answer is easy. As a very young adult (still a teenager) coping ineptly with her deteriorating mental health, Pip shows immaturity and naivety in the new connections she forges, and bull-headedness in most of her decisions. Though she sets out to solve mysteries and propagate the truth at the start, it all becomes very quickly relative…and eventually leads to asking the question I believe the novel wants to provoke: What Is Real Justice? and all the related questions that stem from this question in the face of gender and racial inequity, class/caste privilege, social position, systemic failures, and so on…

I’d love to see a 'Twenty Years Later' edition of this trilogy, a follow-up novel that revisits relationships and the ‘truth’ about everything that went on in this small town over this strange period of seven years…maybe done in the style of a mature investigative and unbiased reporter…

1. Why is this sold in North America as a 'North American' version? People across The Pond can understand 'ringing a friend' and 'pulling the parking brake' on a car as well as any Brit. I'm sure. They can imagine the village of Whatevertown, England as well as a small town in the state of Connecticut. The 'North Americanisation' (to make it simple??) seemed unnecessary (yes, I accidentally got my hands on a US-version of this craic).

2. American Narrators. No please.

...So, I listened to the audiobook. It would have sounded a lot better in the original British English. I wish publishers didn't interfere for the sake of coddling. Imagine Harry Potter sounding like Huck Finn; or Scout Finch barking up a tree with the intonation of Lucy Pevensie? No. Pointless. Ugh. Put it back.

3. Pip's deterioration dragged out far too long in the centre of the book. We could have done with 100 pages less, and would have, if we didn't have to hear how many times she mistook sweat for blood, door-knocks for gunshots, and heard her bones crying... it was a bit over-the-top, even for sympathetic readers who could relate to her downfall.

Hot on the heels of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, I read this feeling the mystery that was introduced in the first wasn’t really solved, and lo, this middle installation only served to prove that things are far more complicated than they seem in Pip’s small town. The place can’t seem to house enough bad-blood for one population.

The story moves quickly and the crime(s, plural, cos there is more than one criminal slinking around committing atrocities) happens almost while you’re blinking. And the missing boy is the least of Pip’s worries. And it all ends on a most unexpected note of terror, leaving you just as shocked and wondering and confused as Pip and Ravi.

At 17, just when it matters, Pip begins to ask deep and disturbing questions about right and wrong, truth and justice, the things she's always thought of as defining good and evil. She doesn't know who to trust: those who are meant to protect, or the ones who actually take up the responsibility?

A fast read. A thrill of shocks and flips in a novel that redefines the meaning of 'good girl'.

Not bad, just maybe too teeny-bopper to be so full of adult themed behaviour (there are no adults providing security or boundaries for these teens, apart from a couple of immature twenty-somethings wrapped up in their own love-stories, an opinion-less bodyguard and his mindless minions, and an elderly couple of subservient house elves)—all which goes on without the need for taking any real-life kind of responsibility due to the extreme money money money these people bathe in as they traipse about the world in hot-air balloons and private jets hosting theme parks on their front lawn by the Trevi Texas-sized fountains. Oh, they make some sacrifices, nothing painful, but there is a showing of big idealistic fiction and a contribution to ‘world peace and ending third-world hunger’ by the end. Of course.

It’s fiction. It’s allowed to be ridiculous.

Overall, a mediocre story with mediocre characters leading to a half-decent finale. Lots of twists and turns, lots of secrets and hidden messages passed forward from several graves, a gamut of riddles to be solved and safes to be cracked amid more concealed tunnels and underground libraries than Buckingham Palace and The Louvre combined could accommodate. But it's Texas. It's the Biggest. Innit?

Anyways, there's loads of unrealistic action and loads of rich-people doing things that serve themselves and calling it fun or purposeful. A fast read with nothing much to discuss, think about, or comment on, really. Ends like a fluffy fairytale, sliding down a picture-perfect rainbow, hoisted over a golden world that floats on silver-lined clouds.

-.-

...and they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

Philosophical think-lit, heavily relationships-focused, without the distraction of complex plot as lives play out, starting in a remote Chinese village to Shanghai to America—and back again. Digs into all the deep-seated issues caused by comparisons made between people of different social status, returning immigrants, second generation Chinese raised by America, and the two sides of a strong struggling culture that claws at relevant recognition in the ‘New’ China. What walls stand firmly between us? What walls might eventually be broken down? And how does China survive as a beautiful distinct culture and entity in a world bent on blending cultures into an earth-sized melting pot? The story serves as an allegory, an interesting investigation into how these questions might be addressed.

I usually enjoy the voices of the least privileged among characters, but I found Sunny’s voice petty, immature, and her jealousy, though it dims, was too ugly—she was difficult to relate to, and that’s not usually my trouble. Still, hers was a voice the story needed to make its impact, and Sunny bookends the novel with her own journey from h(elp)opelessness to opportunity.

I was surprised to like Lina the most of all these characters. Her conflicts ran deep, she was honest with herself, and tried to be openly honest with others, even when discouraged from living honestly. She accepts her circumstances with blind trust, and when the truth is revealed, she is not bitter or ‘traumatised’ but handles it with rare grace. That was nice to see in a character in this day and age. Lina played off as elegant at the start, but she earned it over time.

Wei was kind of clueless. You really couldn’t blame him, though. He was mean to his brother, as many brothers are to each other, but learned his lesson and lived with regrets, longing to repent and not quite sure how to make amends. He tried to be kind as he matured, and that counted for something. And then, he finally won me over in that special scene with his daughter—an awkward, but beautiful passage. Ya did good there, Wei. 

The story addresses no great mysteries nor delivers shocking reveals, at times the writing is a little pedestrian, but overall the wrapping and unwrapping of this highly relationship-focused narrative was decent, and delivers a heart-warming finish; hope for life amid life’s disappointments.

Snarky. Fiery. Oozing with slick sarky characters that slink between a clashing mix of vibrant and gothic settings.

This is addictive from the get-go. It’s the anti-Twilight with all its dark sarcasm and witty cynicism; a dank alternate-universe Mexico City, linking indigenous mythologies and a touch of fantasy sci-fi; and characters who are devious, bent little cusses with cracked and seeping too-honest personalities they can’t keep under wraps despite their best efforts. Loved em all less than 20% of the way into the novel.

And then along came the feisty female single mother detective with a smoking habit she doesn’t want to kick and four-hundred bitter chips on her broad middle-aged shoulders. Oh yah, it’s a detective novel too. Score.

This is never YA, hadn’t thought it was as it wasn’t sold as such, not from the synopsis or summaries, even if it is partly about younger adults—but their lives are definitely not ‘sheltered middle-class’ young adult material. No, it’s full of crass heartless vampires, modified animals and the modern descendants of ancient Aztec mythological beings, mysticism, mariachis, and murder, and a whole sloppy mess of gory gore, foul language, cartel-style crime, sex, murder, and skewed morals—a marvellous irresistible melee of blunt unrestricted writing that snaps open a plot bursting surprises around every dark alley, in every cliché café, from the pages of cult comic book allusions, and ending in a full-blown disastrous and explosive finale. This novel defines a Neo-Noir genre that dips into sci-fi, fantasy, pulp-fiction, and delivers a modernised mythology about the world of vampires we never really ever want to run into in secondary school but are still obsessing over anyway long into adulthood.

Terribly Compulsive.

This trilogy goes backwards and while this is the last one of the bunch, it’s the first part of the chronological story. The reveals that take place here in Hulda’s life help us to understand her attitude and chilling demeanour in the first novels/later part of her life.

I like Hulda, but she is cold and clinical, as is this writing style, despite being heavy with intense emotions and trauma. Hulda finds a quiet and certain way to push ahead, to solve her own troubles, to take revenge, and then she loses her own deepest emotion in the tragedies of others.

The mystery is a twisted psychological mess that untangles itself while Hulda’s life becomes increasingly complicated. What else can she do from now on but bury herself in her work as a homicide detective?

Easy to read, these three novels are chilling Nordic psychological thrillers, void of rabbit trails and flowery language, but crammed with characterisation and plot. Nothing deeply literary and not overly complex, but quick and satisfying nonetheless.

At first, as the dialogue began, I was made harshly aware that I’m in my forties. Even as I spend every day with teenagers as a Secondary School teacher, it still shocks me how far removed I am from what their unbelievable little world is all about; the incessant barrage of social media, their crippling obsession with image, the high-stakes academic competition…but then all these things faded into the background and a different agenda emerged, and it was quite literally black-and-white, traumatically hopeless, full of every racialised stereotype…

The plot is sneaky, sickly twisted, but the scheme is glaringly obvious—I don’t know that it would be so obvious for younger readers (?) as it’s layered with plenty of distractions and subplots to keep a reader curious. Unfortunately, the characters are simplistically dichotomised according to race, with one exception: Chiamaka’s father, and he gets a sort-of hall pass in a torrent of blanket accusations, though he doesn’t escape entirely, because even he is guilty by birth. Indeed, more depth about Chiamaka’s biracial background would have helped these characters develop, but we are simply given a brief description of her racist Italian family, unwilling to accept her and her Nigerian mother, and in true millennial fashion, the whole extended Italian ménage are effectively ‘cancelled’ from their new-American lives (read: From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home for a beautiful story of race, reconciliation and love).

Many of the characters are fickle, unobservant, and other than Chiamaka and Devon, are two-dimensional, lifeless foils that only exist to serve the plot; they display schizophrenic qualities and shift allegiances based on the needs of the progressing story. Former friends turn easily and immediately into mock-Jeckylls, and one lover drops off a sheer cliff altogether in the midst of feeble and whiny attempts at apology (no names: no spoilers here).

There is a disturbing sense of demonic hatred creeping beneath the surface of ‘clean appearances’ at the 99.6% all-white elite school, and the targets of this sinister plot are as confused as their ancestors as to the explanation. An unidentifiable masked entity, bearing the face of many, is out to destroy the only two black students and destroy their carefully constructed accolades and reputations.

Reeking of the collective-secret of cowardice KKK propaganda, the antagonist of this story looms up, bitter and petty, clawing at status and position and power, rising from an ugly period of modern history, and shoving its way into the crevices of what should be the safest of our institutions: our schools. (Yeah, right…) What follows is a full-fledged, vomit-inducing allegory of the very real and frustrating continued struggle of blacks in America to pierce the race barrier, to succeed, to excel in the arenas of academics and music, to carve out an equal place on any podium…and it continues to be unfair, imbalanced, governed by an unjust inequitable system. But this particular story gradually grows hyperbolic and so unrealistic that it strains the allegory of the power it might have otherwise possessed.

The writing certainly flows easily over the pages, despite the initial juvenile feel, but it grows up quickly, presenting very adult themes and the harsh unfair lives too many children must overcome—things too many people often drown beneath—because of oppression and the intentional systematic restraint of opportunity. Except ALL the issues here are put on one character’s plate, and I mean ALL the possible issues one teen might be required to survive; intersectionality doesn’t even begin to address the hundred nuances and racial stereotypes embodied by Devon’s character.

By the half-way point, the story crosses into a parallel universe—or what should have been a fantasy world—because it would have worked better as an allegory with its important message about systemic racism, and red-flag warnings about social eugenics, but the lack of relatable setting and increasingly improbable circumstances worked against its authenticity.

In the end, the story becomes somewhat predictable, wrought with all the disappointment we expect, and no leaders ever seem to learn, no system ever gets deconstructed, no real justice ever prevails unless the whole thing gets burned to the ground—and even then the hope at restart seems slim…

I never watched/read ‘Gossip Girl’ or ‘Get Out’ so I’m unfamiliar with the comparisons as highlighted in the synopsis for this book, but as the plot unfolded, I felt the author was more trying to emulate the eerie antagonism of ‘Pretty Little Liars’ with the outing of secrets and shaming nature of the juvenile criticisms. This was an intriguing tactic, and held my interest, but the culmination was less than satisfying considering the potential for impact.

Apparently, people loved this and thought it was fantastic. I thought it gradually lacked impact due to its improbability in the details, and would have preferred it in a fantasy/other-world setting in order to increase believability, rather than go for the 'realism' it attempted. And I wanted this story to carry heavy and genuine impact. But as I said at the start, not being so easily duped probably just goes to show my age, more than anything else.

Murderers in Christie’s day were ever so immensely creative, undisputed masters in the intricacies of deception—but never any match for the little grey cells of M. Poirot with his superior deductive skills.

I meant to read this over Christmas, but here we are… wading through a sea of mildly disguised dead ringer red herrings, considering all the culprits and scenarios until the guilty party and his unlikely crime are delivered up on an aha platter.

We need more of these voices.

Since the dawn of mankind and even now, humans find ways to delight in cruelty, and that’s no story, that is the ugliest truth; the cruelty of humanity knows no bounds, but the will and the power of humanity for love and the fight for freedom is greater.

Colson Whitehead’s writing is stark, unsentimental, and heart-wrenching. He leaves no stone unturned, and yet does not delight in explicit details in the retelling—just relates the bare horrific facts. He is a masterful writer and an addictive storyteller. This is a story that all of America’s children should be told, again and again and again, so that the memory of the hell that once was, and the story of the quiet servants of freedom who broke the back of slavery, will continue to educate a nation towards understanding the freedom and liberty and pursuit of happiness so adamantly declared by and for all its citizens.

I started this book and didn’t stop reading until I finished. I didn’t stop for anything, I just read and read and read, that underground train moving on and on in my ear.

No man can be judged by the colour of his skin, no heart can be judged by the size of its pocket, no body can be weighed by the extent of its work ethic, no life can be measured … 

This deserved every prize it received.

This starts on a note of tragedy. It’s a bit of a shock since I only finished the second novel in the series a few days ago and four years have passed between then and the start of this one—and a lot has happened in the interim.

This is the racing finale to a highly informative, educational, historically-lush, and thrilling trilogy of Chinese-American relations and mystery and murder, set in the late 90s-early2000s. Science, archaeology, the birth of so much technology we now already take for granted, culture, mythology, and the discoveries of ancient language fill the pages, and the intricate plot twists itself around all these things, deeply imbedding a variety of unique characters in the unpredictable landscape as each one reveals their dedication to either interested study or self-seeking exploitation of the wonders at their fingertips.

I was sad to see where David Stark and Liu Hulan began in this third instalment, but there’s always hope…and it’s a rocky ride, but there is hope as the story proceeds.

I’m sorry this series is over. It was an exciting journey, and I’m glad Lisa See has a LOT more in her repertoire for me to read because I plan on it…