Latest news with #AGoodGirl'sGuidetoMurder
NZ Herald
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Book of the day: Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson
Holly Jackson: Preposterous but enjoyable tale. Images / Supplied Jet, the 27-year-old heroine of Not Quite Dead Yet, has a choice to make: she can die now, or die in a week. Someone attacks Jet when she returns to her family home on Halloween night. The way the blows land mean surgery has only a 10% chance of success. The alternative is an inevitable fatal aneurysm in seven days. 'What kind of choice was that?' the terminally flippant Jet asks herself. '[She] couldn't even decide what to have for breakfast most days.' Opting to forgo the operation and take the seven days, Jet is determined to solve her own murder. She wants to prove she can persevere with something to the end; that she wasn't 'born useless and would die that way, too', as her mother says about her when she gives up law school. That's the set-up for Holly Jackson's first adult novel. Her previous books have all been YA, with her first, the phenomenally successful A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, being followed by two popular sequels and turned into a BBC TV series. Jet moves out of the family home, escaping her mother's pleas to have the operation, and moves in with her childhood best friend, Billy. 'Poor sweet Billy' has always been in love with an oblivious Jet and agrees to help her find her killer. Driving around town in Jet's beloved powder-blue pick-up truck, their investigations lead them to suspect, among others, Jet's brother, Jet's brother's wife, employees of her father's construction company and the brother of a former boyfriend. The police, also investigating the 'murder', are always at least one step behind, and the sense of Jet and Billy being two young people against the world while the clock ticks down is nicely done. The grimness of the time bomb in Jet's brain is lightened by her ever-present smart-aleck humour: 'Smashing shit with sledgehammers, pissing [my brother] off, being an asshole because I'm dying and allowed to be, having guns waved in our faces. I'm having fun, aren't you?' Despite Jet's dire prognosis and much swearing, the novel feels more YA than adult. The grown-ups – and, tellingly, it feels accurate to characterise anyone but Jet and Billy as 'the grown-ups' – tend towards caricature. The book's setting of Woodstock, Vermont, was seemingly chosen for its proximity to the UK-based Jackson's American publishers and, despite the prevalence of pick-up trucks and rotting Halloween pumpkins on porches, is so lightly sketched it could be an anonymous town anywhere. Jet's major motivation for solving her own murder seems to be to show her family, especially her mother, that she can complete something hard, and this, too, feels more 17 than 27. But Not Quite Dead Yet is enjoyable. Jackson is not an astoundingly successful author for nothing. She can do pace, twists, snarky humour and pathos with the best of them. She makes you care about the prickly, wise-cracking Jet even as Jet's jokes get progressively more tired and self defeating: 'Come on, she was the one dying, they could at least pity-laugh.' The crime is genuinely perplexing and the efforts Jet and Billy make to solve it get riskier as the days count down, involving them in warehouse fires and precious time wasted in prison cells. Throughout there's the reliable fun of seeing these digital natives outwit the boomer cops with their technological know-how. The solution to the crime is, frankly, preposterous, but you'll be so caught up in Jet's race against time you probably won't mind much anyway. Not just for fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Not Quite Dead Yet, by Holly Jackson (Michael Joseph, $38), is out now.
Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Book Review: Following a vicious attack, a woman solves her own murder in Holly Jackson novel
After the shattering conclusion of 'Not Quite Dead Yet,' author Holly Jackson addresses her readers this way: '… and breathe. Sorry. I know that was intense.' This is the first adult suspense novel by Jackson, the author of popular young-adult fiction including 'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder,' and it is emotionally wrenching from start to finish. The unforgettable protagonist is Jet Mason, a 27-year-old woman still living with her parents in Woodstock, Vermont. She's can't seem to get her life started — has never finished anything including law school. 'I'll do it later,' she always says. 'I have plenty of time.' But she doesn't. Returning home after a Halloween party, she is attacked, her skull smashed with a hammer. When she wakes up in the hospital, she receives shocking news. Her surgeon was unable to remove a tiny bone fragment resting against a major blood vessel in her brain. If it remains there, it will cause a fatal brain aneurysm within seven days. If they try to remove it, they must act now, but she has only a remote chance of survival. Her doctor tells her that she must choose. Jet decides against surgery. With just seven days left, she is determined to finally finish something. Before she dies, she will solve her own murder. Leaving home to escape her mother's constant pleas to have the surgery, Jet teams up with Billy, a sweet young man who has loved her since they were children, and together they set out to unmask the killer. Jet never imagined that she had enemies, but before long the police have arrested JJ, a former boyfriend who had never gotten over her. All but sure the police got it wrong, Jet persists, uncovering a series of family and small-town secrets that reveal an abundance of motives and suspects. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. The result is a fast-paced, intensely suspenseful race against time populated by an impressive collection of well-drawn characters. And in the end, the young woman who never finished anything emerges as a model of intelligence, courage, resilience and decency. ___ Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including 'The Dread Line.' ___ AP book reviews:
Hamilton Spectator
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Book Review: Following a vicious attack, a woman solves her own murder in Holly Jackson novel
After the shattering conclusion of 'Not Quite Dead Yet,' author Holly Jackson addresses her readers this way: '... and breathe. Sorry. I know that was intense.' This is the first adult suspense novel by Jackson, the author of popular young-adult fiction including 'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder,' and it is emotionally wrenching from start to finish. The unforgettable protagonist is Jet Mason, a 27-year-old woman still living with her parents in Woodstock, Vermont. She's can't seem to get her life started — has never finished anything including law school. 'I'll do it later,' she always says. 'I have plenty of time.' But she doesn't. Returning home after a Halloween party, she is attacked, her skull smashed with a hammer. When she wakes up in the hospital, she receives shocking news. Her surgeon was unable to remove a tiny bone fragment resting against a major blood vessel in her brain. If it remains there, it will cause a fatal brain aneurysm within seven days. If they try to remove it, they must act now, but she has only a remote chance of survival. Her doctor tells her that she must choose. Jet decides against surgery. With just seven days left, she is determined to finally finish something. Before she dies, she will solve her own murder. Leaving home to escape her mother's constant pleas to have the surgery, Jet teams up with Billy, a sweet young man who has loved her since they were children, and together they set out to unmask the killer. Jet never imagined that she had enemies, but before long the police have arrested JJ, a former boyfriend who had never gotten over her. All but sure the police got it wrong, Jet persists, uncovering a series of family and small-town secrets that reveal an abundance of motives and suspects. The result is a fast-paced, intensely suspenseful race against time populated by an impressive collection of well-drawn characters. And in the end, the young woman who never finished anything emerges as a model of intelligence, courage, resilience and decency. ___ Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including 'The Dread Line.' ___ AP book reviews:
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Book Review: Following a vicious attack, a woman solves her own murder in Holly Jackson novel
After the shattering conclusion of 'Not Quite Dead Yet,' author Holly Jackson addresses her readers this way: '... and breathe. Sorry. I know that was intense.' This is the first adult suspense novel by Jackson, the author of popular young-adult fiction including 'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder,' and it is emotionally wrenching from start to finish. The unforgettable protagonist is Jet Mason, a 27-year-old woman still living with her parents in Woodstock, Vermont. She's can't seem to get her life started — has never finished anything including law school. 'I'll do it later,' she always says. 'I have plenty of time.' But she doesn't. Returning home after a Halloween party, she is attacked, her skull smashed with a hammer. When she wakes up in the hospital, she receives shocking news. Her surgeon was unable to remove a tiny bone fragment resting against a major blood vessel in her brain. If it remains there, it will cause a fatal brain aneurysm within seven days. If they try to remove it, they must act now, but she has only a remote chance of survival. Her doctor tells her that she must choose. Jet decides against surgery. With just seven days left, she is determined to finally finish something. Before she dies, she will solve her own murder. Leaving home to escape her mother's constant pleas to have the surgery, Jet teams up with Billy, a sweet young man who has loved her since they were children, and together they set out to unmask the killer. Jet never imagined that she had enemies, but before long the police have arrested JJ, a former boyfriend who had never gotten over her. All but sure the police got it wrong, Jet persists, uncovering a series of family and small-town secrets that reveal an abundance of motives and suspects. The result is a fast-paced, intensely suspenseful race against time populated by an impressive collection of well-drawn characters. And in the end, the young woman who never finished anything emerges as a model of intelligence, courage, resilience and decency. ___
NDTV
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NDTV
Ahead Of Season 2 Release, Jenna Ortega's Wednesday Renewed For Third
Los Angeles: There's great news for the fans of Jenna Ortega-starrer Wednesday. Netflix has renewed the supernatural comedy series for the third season, Deadline reported. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Wednesday Netflix (@wednesdaynetflix) Fans have been going gaga ever since the streamer announced the third season. "So exciting,' an Instagram user commented.''I can't wait to watch season 2 & season 3,'' another one wrote. Interestingly, the update comes ahead of the Season 2 launch on Netflix on August 6 and after Season 1 became the most-watched original series ever on the streamer, with more than 250 million views. It also received 12 Emmy nominations, including for Ortega in Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. The show is therefore undoubtedly one of the streamer's biggest hits. Wednesday stars Ortega as the titular Wednesday, who is expelled from her school and sent to a private academy for outcasts. Gwendoline Christie, Emma Myers and Riki Lindhome also star. The show has made stars of the likes of Myers, who also leads the BBC and Netflix's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Season 2 made Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzman, Isaac Ordonez and Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo series regulars, and added Billie Piper, Steve Buscemi, Evie Templeton, Owen Painter and Noah Taylor to the cast.
