What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I remember reading this book sometime pre-covid, so 2016-2019.

The book opens with our protagonist, a young girl, looking at another girl who's dead. A man approaches and says something like, 'We'll have to look at her life to understand how she got here,' These two characters explore the dead girls life throughout the book. One of the things we find out about her (the dead girl) is that (view spoiler)[ she had OCD, and needed to do things 7 times. (hide spoiler)]

When the two are not exploring the dead girl's life, they are judging people. The first people that get judged are (view spoiler)[ a man and a woman who accidentally ran over a dog, and then to put it out of its misery, ran over it again. (hide spoiler)] As punishment, (view spoiler)[ the man has to put the woman's face back together, which he succeeds at, and they can go back to regular life. (hide spoiler)]

I'm confident someone else gets judged later for a different incident because I remember the plot hook inside the book jacket saying that 3 people get judged for things they did, but I don't remember if what I think it is is from this book or the second, which is (POSSIBLE SPOILER FOR SECOND BOOK?) (view spoiler)[ a guy and his friend do something, and to see who will get the punishment, the have to climb down a super tall pillar, and whomever reaches the bottom first doesn't get punished. The friend is faster than the guy, so the guy tried to push his friend down to win, but since the friend hit the ground first, the guy gets the punishment, which is he has to live the entire life as a man in a wheelchair in the span of a week or something, time for him got dilated so it's longer for him than it actually is. (hide spoiler)]

Anyways, back to the dead girl. We find out later that (view spoiler)[ our protagonist was actually a bully who bullied the OCD girl into committing suicide, and then got judged and punished by the man. She had to walk through a desert with sand blowing everywhere, making it hard to see, to try and find 7 objects. The book pointed out that the challenge did not have a time limit to it. Anyways, she accomplishes that, but she thinks she hasn't been punished enough, so begs the man to make her his apprentice to train under him. (hide spoiler)] That's the first book.

This book has two sequels. I don't remember much of the second, but I remember that at the end, (view spoiler)[ the protagonist finds the mans love interest and takes over as main punisher, outgrowing being an apprentice. (hide spoiler)] I never read the third, but I think it had something about snakes or serpents in the title.

Oh, and about the whole judging thing, (view spoiler)[ there's a guy that's supposed to represent chance, because it's supposed to give the to-be-punished a fair chance on if they'll be punished or not. (hide spoiler)]

Sounds like Messenger of Fear by Michael Grant

That's it! Thank you.

Glad you found your book, Bella.

Messenger of Fear (book 1 of the Messenger of Fear series) by Michael Grant - Becca's find.