A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is the YA thriller r/YAlit credits with reviving the whole genre. Pip reopens a closed murder case for her senior project, everyone says Sal Singh killed Andie Bell and then himself five years ago, but Pip isn't convinced, and what starts as homework turns into real danger. Readers say the true-crime-podcast format (interview transcripts, case files, screenshots) is what hooks you in the first chapter. It's properly YA, but it gets genuinely dark by book 3, so it isn't the cozy mystery the school-project framing suggests. A complete, bingeable trilogy, the threads say read all three in order.
Curated from real reader threads on Reddit (r/Romantasy, r/RomanceBooks, r/Fantasy) and cross-referenced against Goodreads and BookTok. Updated regularly.
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by Karen McManus
Five students go into detention, one doesn't come out alive. YA murder mystery with the same teenager-investigates-impossible-situation energy. Most-mentioned AGGGTM readalike on Reddit.
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
A girl inherits a billionaire's estate, but only if she can solve the puzzles he left behind. Same puzzle-driven plot momentum with a mystery that keeps layering.
by Maureen Johnson
A true-crime-obsessed girl attends a school famous for an unsolved 1930s kidnapping, and discovers a new mystery. Same YA thriller voice, same obsessive investigator protagonist.
by E. Lockhart
A family reunion on a private island, a memory wiped clean, and a summer that no one will talk about. YA mystery with the same "I need to know what happened" forward momentum.
by Karen McManus
Echo Ridge has a history of dead girls. Another one is missing. Same small-town secrets structure that AGGGTM runs on.
by Alex Michaelides
The adult thriller AGGGTM readers graduate to. Same twist-everything reveal, same unreliable accounts, significantly darker and more complex. The natural step up.
Yes, three books: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, Good Girl Bad Blood, and As Good as Dead. The trilogy is complete and should be read in order. Books 2 and 3 have the same characters, higher stakes, and more darkness.
YA, recommended 14+. There's violence, references to drugs and sexual assault, and the stakes get genuinely dark in book 3. Not a cozy mystery despite the school-project framing.
The true-crime podcast format woven into the text, transcribed interviews, screenshots, case files, makes it feel like following a real investigation. Most readers cite the format as what hooked them in the first chapter.
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