Joyce Maynard's (fav author) latest audio version of TO DIE FOR is hilarious, seductive, a highly entertaining satire— full of dark humor, crime, sex, ambition, money, and murder.No one can tell a re-telling quite like Joyce Maynard! Unsettling in its social commentary, this darkly comedic thriller was inspired by a scandalous 1990 Pamela Smart crime.AUDIO: Narrated by an entire cast with an award-winning performance making the characters come alive. Told from each POV—each voice is unique, from the main characters, the parents, the teens, the boss, detectives, and the media. I was hooked from the beginning to the end.Joyce Maynard, Michael Crouch, Piper Goodeve, Carly Robins, Lily Ganser, Tara Sands, Paul Castro Jr., Lisa Flanagan, Jonathan Davis, Jim Conroy, Will Collyer, Arianna Ratner, Dwayne Hill, Jeff Wiens, and Adam David ThompsonA huge Maynard fan not sure how I missed this the first time; however, after listening to the smashing audiobook, I rented the movie on Prime Video and enjoyed it. Suzanne was pure evil.A 22-year-old Suzanne Maretto, a pathologically self-absorbed, ruthlessly ambitious femme fatale, would-be TV journalist, and the three high school misfits she recruits to kill her husband so she can be free to pursue her chosen career."A seductive page-turner" about a murderously ambitious cable news star by the New York Times best-selling author of Labor Day (The New York Times Book Review).Suzanne Stone Maretto has craved attention since she was a little girl, deciding to be the next Barbara Walters. At 22, she is manipulative, ambitious, and beautiful; she lands a job at a local suburban cable TV news station as a secretary; however, this, of course, is not good enough for her, and she decides to do a documentary of the local high school students.Set in a small New Hampshire town, To Die For follows Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman), a young, manipulative, ambitious woman with big dreams of being on television.After marrying Larry Maretto (Matt Dillon) and securing a job reading weather reports at a local news station, Suzanne begins to work on a documentary about teenage life. The project sees her cross paths with local teens Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix), Russel (Casey Affleck), and Lydia (Alison Folland), and before long, Suzanne's marriage to Larry takes a back seat to her career aspirations.Deceitful and manipulative, she decides to kill Larry, enlisting the help of her hopelessly naive and impressionable teenage acquaintances. After a media firestorm engulfs the scene, placing Suzanne front and center in the white-hot spotlight of celebrity, a series of revelations brings everything to a screeching halt.She is married to a good-looking Italian guy, Larry, and an up-and-coming restauranteur from a good family. Suzanne's parents have spoiled her thinking she can do no wrong. When Larry starts talking about having children and not supporting her ambitions, she decides to get rid of him, telling Jimmy, her new 15-year-old high school lover he is abusing her. Jimmy and his friend Russell set up a pretend robbery to murder him. She selfishly uses the three video documentary students from the local high school and casts them aside.The deed is done, and now she plays the grieving widow searching for a new TV deal. She sells them all down the river. However, Larry's father knows she did this to his son, and he will make her pay.Maynard's brilliant, funny, and groundbreaking novel—adapted by Gus Van Sant into the cult classic movie of the same name, starring Nicole Kidman and Matt Dillon—was first published in 1992 before the era of manufactured stardom and the phenomenon of televised murder trials as entertainment.The book remains a razor-sharp satire of celebrity-fixated culture and the American obsession with TV. This novel imagined the phenomenon of reality television before its creation, with alternately bone-chilling and hilarious accuracy.When the film was released in 1995, reality TV was still in its early days, but Nicole Kidman's portrayal of a woman obsessed with fame and celebrity is more pertinent now than it was nearly three decades ago. She possesses all the vanity and cynicism that's all too recognizable in our current social media and influencer culture.If you enjoyed TO DIE FOR, I highly recommend her other audiobook, THE INFLUENCERS (a short story based on Gabby Petito true crime), and her latest literary suspense, THE BIRD HOTEL. All five stars!#JDCMustReadBooks