Good Girl, Bad Blood

Pip is an 18-year-old high school senior living in the small Connecticut town of Fairview. A year earlier, she achieved internet fame for a podcast in which she solved two murders and got a serial rapist arrested. The aftereffects of her crusade haven’t been pleasant. Pip is deeply ambivalent about the role she played in exposing other people’s secrets during her quest to find the truth.

A large part of her motivation in creating the podcast was to prove herself to others. Pip is often misperceived, but she wants to be viewed as a “good girl,” which explains the name of her podcast. Such a stance creates a conflict between her desire to solve mysteries while still gaining social approval. Unable to resolve the contradiction, Pip shuts down her podcast until the disappearance of Jamie Reynolds draws her back in.

Pip understands the power of social media and recognizes the limitations of law enforcement and the justice system. Her frustration with the authorities causes her to air a second season of the podcast despite her foreboding about where her inquiry might lead. Throughout the novel, Pip continues to grapple with other people’s negative perceptions of her but ultimately shrugs off social approval in her pursuit of truth.