A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

The whole point of the book that made it so famous was that you solve this case alongside Pip, which the series decided not to do, losing the whole point of the story.

Important and interesting scenes from the book were lost and e.g. 5 scenes were merged into 1 with simple dialogue without any connection to the actors.

The information of the murder is thrown away pointlessly without any suspense, since the series starts essentialistically from the end of the book. Unfortunately it didn't come out the way the book deserved.

As for the actors, I don't think they did a bad job, they just had to deal with a bad script that didn't let the audience to get involved enough in actor's lives and get involved in the story.

Maybe it's a good work for those who haven't read the book, but I think for anyone who has read it the differences and missteps were annoying.

The murder of popular student Andie has haunted a small community for some years. Inquisitive and intelligent student Pip decides to look into the case, and establish whether or not Andie's boyfriend Sal was guilty or not.

It's a very unusual series, it doesn't follow any of the rules, aimed at a teenage audience, but has something to offer older viewers, just know what you're getting.

The best way I could describe it, CBBC does I know what you did last summer, at times it very much feels like a drama for young teens, at times, such as in the last two episodes, it goes into a much darker place.

It does go on a bit, and it is slow in parts, but overall there's enough to keep you interested. There's enough to have made me order the book.

It's nicely acted, Emma Myers and Anna Maxwell Martin both do a fine job, Maxwell definitely showing her experience and class.

7/10.

An interesting but uneven mystery drama that never quite manages to firmly find its feet. There's lots to enjoy in this series from the lovely shooting locations, the very good lead performances to the actual mystery itself and the almost cold case style investigation which follows. I haven't read the book so can't comment on how accurate it is. The series sometimes starts onto territory that feels familiar and a couple of bits feel slightly shoehorned in, including a I Know What You Did Last Summer style accident.

A certain tall blonde young woman will also appear exactly when our protagonist needs her to in order to help. The friends at times get some development at other times feel superfluous. You start to realise soon all the white men in the series are bad in some often vile and criminal way, ethnic men though are mostly kind hearted and caring, imagine if the BBC did the opposite. It's become almost weakness and trope now you actually start to roll your eyes at. The casting is mostly quite good though one actor playing a pressured 17 years looks not a day over 40. Smart phones get used a lot in the series but usually to advance the plot along. Our main character gets to give lots of self-righteous rants at different point meanwhile her Watson friend somehow seems to be entirely void of anything approaching a realistic life, often just appearing by a lake with his hands in his pockets in order for our protagonist to talk with him, how longs he been stood staring at that tree?

We get a fair bit of drugs in the series, a slightly unsettling list of professions you think you can trust like teachers and policemen who are very much not trustworthy to say the least. Plot holes are simply gigantic, a certain accident involving an animal makes no sense, nor the motives of people really. Some bits are also unclear but for the most part I could follow it. Its all very idealised at times the perfect cottage england homes, the traffic free streets, the dog that never barks or gets too excited, or causes any mess or problems. The parents who exchange witty banter, it's all a bit tv land. I do like a good mystery though, the thing moves along nicely, it's fairly well done technically and so I give it a 6 overall. Despite its slightly funny character overall its not a comedy touching on some interesting themes relevant to young people about racism, parenting, friendship, drugs, consent and intergrity.

I've read the books and I didn't feel the characters in the book with the actors. Emma doesn't have the accent for it. I don't understand why they couldn't hire a British actress. There's plenty out there like okay.

Also, a lot of things were changed which didn't make sense to me and the chemistry kind of lacked in places between friends. I thought the main ship had chemistry.

The scenery, the cinematography was incredible, though. Honestly IMHO if you're adapting a book. Do it by the book. Stop tweaking details. It's annoying and I don't like how white boys/men are depicted nowadays like stop.

I was really looking forward to this as I loved the book. In general it was a good adaptation, but I don't think the acting was the best. Sadly multiple actors lacked depth and sincerity in their parts. Don't get me wrong, I think there was a lot of good acting (e.g. Cara and Naomi) but the two leads (Pip and Ravi) weren't particularly convincing. Emma's accent also falters often. There were details missed from the book which I suppose is necessary for a series, but the book felt more rich in detail and storyline quality. However, it is bingeworthy as the story is similar to the book, I just think it could have been (much) better.