Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

These words certainly apply to the murder of Ashley Ellerin, but they equally apply to the narcissistic author. While this book is ostensibly about Ashley's murder, it is mostly about Carolyn Murnick's blissful lack of self-awareness. I have come to appreciate the unreliable narrator that has become de rigueur in fiction, but I am far less forgiving of the unreliable narrator in a book that claims to be non-fiction. In many ways, I feel robbed of any insight into this terrible crime and duped into hearing tall tales that are reminiscent of James Frey (of "Million Little Pieces" infamy). You will truly find little of value in Ms. Murnick's exploitive account. Truth be told, Ms. Murnick had a few bright spots of analysis regarding how female friendships contort themselves under the male gaze, but such insights were short-lived. All in all, I felt that I was reading a text written by someone with Alzheimer's; they would have a few minutes of lucidity before slipping back into a myopic world. In this case, Murnick might accidentally touch upon a profound truth only to slip back into her self-aggrandizing character assassination of Ashley. Throughout the book, I kept wondering what Ashley's parents would say about Murnick and her claims of being Ashley's BFF. I'll speak plainly: I think that Murnick was a semi-competent writer at a third tier info-tainment magazine and she seized upon the murder of a woman from her hometown as a way to make a name for herself. From the insensitive jokes Murnick makes about the murder, to her pathological need to sully the memory of Ashley, to her passing around the autopsy report like candy to her similarly career-stalled friends, I felt that Murnick derived a perverse satisfaction from inserting herself into the case. I can only imagine that the legal teams on both sides must have had a chuckle about the trial groupie that thought she was the next Truman Capote. No true friend would tarnish Ashley's memory out of a misplaced sense of Puritanical morality. This is especially the case after it becomes clear that Murnick is/was terribly threatened by Ashley and jealous of Ashley's beauty. At the end of the day, perhaps this spiteful book would not have been written had Murnick been more attractive to men or had pursued a career which gave her the attention and accolades she feels entitled to. Finally, if I sound angry, it's because I feel that I wasted my money and time on a book that advertises Murnick's pathology in lieu of a worthwhile analysis of this murder. I'm left feeling that, although I never met Ashley, I feel far more protective of her memory than her supposed "friend." In life, Ashley was exploited by the men who wanted to be around her beauty. In death, Ashley is exploited by both her association with a B-list actor and her "friend" who seeks to bask in Ashley's reflected glory. The author's glibness and hollow attempts at self-depreciation only serve to show me that in addition to being "the hot one," Ashley was also "the kind one," "the moral one" and "the self-aware one."