Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson
Publication Date: July 22, 2025
Summary from Goodreads:
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder—now a hit Netflix series—returns with her first novel for adults: a twisty thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder.
In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.
Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.
Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.
She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.
Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.
She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:
Jet is going to solve her own murder.
ARC provided by Random House via Netgalley for an honest review.
Confession:
I have been having a hard time writing this review, because I have so many thoughts and feelings about this fantastic book, that I can’t seem to put together a coherent thought about it. Plus, it is hard to write about without giving anything away, but I am going to try.
If this book is not already on your TBR, you really need to add it. It is a well thought out murder mystery, with fantastic characters, an emotional punch at the end and lots of nice twists to the mystery. I just adored this book and think it is Holly’s best book yet.
The story is told through Jet’s point of view and she is such a great character. You start off not liking her very much. She is abrasive and sarcastic, and not very nice to her family, but as she struggles with trying to discover who murdered her before she dies, you really start to feel for her and even like her a little bit. I loved her ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude and her gallows humor, they gave the story some much needed comedic moments. But this story wasn’t all about solving the murder. Jet spends time redefining her relationships with her family and friends, discovering some family secrets while finding herself.
Billy was such a sweet and endearing character, I just wanted to hug him and tell him everything was going to be ok, even though we both knew it wasn’t. I loved his determination to help Jet, even when it involved a little rule breaking. He was also a pretty smart guy and was able to help Jet figure some parts of the mystery out. There were some slight moments when I thought maybe he did it, but I pretty much suspected everyone, so that wasn’t a huge surprise. But that passed pretty quickly because I knew he just couldn’t have done it.
If you have read any of Holly Jackson’s books then you know how well she writes a story. This was a fast paced story that I pretty much raced through. It was really hard to put it down as I felt the urgency to figure out the mystery as much as the characters did. There are a lot of suspects, but the final twist was a bit of a surprise. Jet’s family was not the most functional, but some of their secrets were quite surprising. The ending was a bit rushed, but had such an emotional impact on me that I was ok with the rush. My only wish is that we got maybe one more chapter that related what happened to some of the characters, Billy mostly, but some of the other ones too.
Fans of Ms Jackson are going to love this. If you have never read any of her YA books, you can’t go wrong with starting with this ‘adult’ murder mystery. This is a one of a kind murder mystery with compelling characters and a heck of an ending.
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