Mini Review: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, A Deadly Education

Sometimes the audiobook is made or broken by narration. I stand by this statement for these next two audiobooks that I’d recently listened to. That said, I will also say it wasn’t just the narrative voices I paid attention to.

I really enjoyed A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder throughout. I listened to this audiobook almost nonstop when I was baking madeleines and having lunch. It read like I was watching some crime drama on the TV, so all I really needed was my imagination to really make the story come to life. Some of the twists actually were twisty to the end, and I will admit I rooted for not only the MC, but for her sidekick/LI (he was definitely a cutie pie!).

The second book, A Deadly Education, was written by Naomi Novik. I considered turning this into a full-blown review instead of a mini, because I probably could write a lot about what I found was problematic, what I loved, etc., but overall, I didn’t find as much enjoyment of this book as I did when I gushed about Uprooted a while back. I’ve yet to read Spinning Silver though I hope to remedy that at some point.

I know there was a lot of controversy swirling around race in this book, and many POCs have already commented on this, and honestly, the overall consensus is that yes, the comment about the dreadlocks sucked, but I’m also of the camp that there was nothing blatantly intentional or offensive about El’s lack of cultural identity towards her Asian side of the family. My irritation with El mostly ran along the lines of the fact that she’s supposed to be this super-sarcastic, witty, powerful witch, and all I kept hearing when she talked to people was “asshole.” There’s a difference between the two, and as someone who is inwardly antisocial and judgmental, even I can tone that shit down.

Also, little random tidbit: I know there’s accent and sometimes there’s different ways to pronounce words, but for the life of me, I hadn’t realized dark witches/wizards were called “maleficars” (a word I’m familiar with because of the Dragon Age series) because of how it was pronounced in the audiobook. It made me wonder why “maleficarum” and “maleficar” sounded completely different, and it drove me nuts once I realized this.

I definitely recommend A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and, as annoyed as I was of the MC in A Deadly Education, I will admit that the worldbuilding was good, albeit info-dumpy throughout the text. Will I read the second book of the Scholomance series? Probably, just to see what cinnamon roll Orion Lake is up to.

Have you read either of these books? What did you think?