Not Quite Dead Yet: Holly Jackson’s Bittersweet Murder Mystery

By Angelina G.

Not Quite Dead Yet is a murder mystery involving a girl who is attacked in an attempt at murder, but she manages to survive in a medical miracle quickly turned into a false blessing when it's revealed she has a week to live due to a brain injury. The author Holly Jackson may be more well known as the author of the acclaimed A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder series, which heightened my expectations. 

The book focuses on the town of Woodstock, Vermont, a rural town where everyone knows each other by name, and the main character Let(Marge) is a spunky, caustic 27-year old who is the victim of an attempted murder on Halloween night. In the intro of the novel we can see her insecurity develop over having quit several jobs and still living with her extremely wealthy parents. Her father is the owner of a successful construction company with her brother appearing to be the heir to his company.  

The book creates amazing character growth with Let seemingly starting to care and take more risks and opportunities as her time runs out day by day and less about her parents inflated expectations. My favorite part of the book is how our main character develops throughout the story and becomes more than just a typical uninteresting sarcastic girl. The intro worried me because it introduced her as just a boring cool girl, but her character growth is arguably the best 

part of the book. 

My main issue with the book is how many side plots it is packed with. In the end, they individually did contribute to solving the murder, but it got confusing remembering why and how one character connected to another. It made it slightly annoying to read and for a certain person to be mentioned. It also has a strange balance of characters, with ones you’d expect to be more relevant(like the ex-boyfriend of our main character) being overshadowed by some random alcoholic’s dead daughter. I also disliked the reveal of the murderer because it felt very random. The end suddenly changed pace dramatically, and the last 50 pages feel slightly rushed.