Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story: A Beautiful Photographer, Her Mormon Lover, and a Brutal Murder

I was among the millions who became obsessed by the Jodi Arias trial, having never before heard of the young woman who slaughtered her lover. Some trials are black and white, and this was no exception. I grew to despise every facet of Jodi Arias, who in my mind was nothing but a cold-blooded killer of an exemplary young man.I began Picture Perfect, the only book I read about Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander, because I have great respect for Shanna Hogan's ability to skillfully research a story and tell it well. By this point, I had begun to question why Jodi Arias had committed this heinous murder of a man who was depicted by his family and friends as a devout Mormon and a successful motivational speaker at his young age. What drove Travis Alexander to repeatedly defy church doctrine by entering into a relationship centered around sex with the mousey young woman I watched during her murder trial? Was Jodi Arias a modern day Lorelei who had lured him into her trap, using sex in place of the siren song, to ultimately kill him?As I read the book, I learned much about Travis Alexander from his friends, business associates and his own writing. Some readers have complained that Shanna Hogan wrote a one-sided story defaming Travis Alexander by using Jodi Arias as her source. How I disagree with this opinion! The words of his closest friends shone a bright light on Travis Alexander, which depicted a man I came to dislike. Let me make one thing clear: regardless of Travis Alexander's foibles, he did not deserve his horrific fate. Period. On the other hand, he was far from sainthood.After a childhood spent in poverty and a series of menial jobs, Travis was introduced to Prepaid Legal, a company that had all the earmarks of a Ponzi scheme. By getting in at the bottom, Travis benefited financially by recruiting friends and acquaintances to join the company. He was compensated for each recruit as well as part of their earnings. In many ways, this enthusiastic go-getter became the face of Prepaid Legal and was often called upon to present sales pitches, masquerading as motivational speeches. Rather than a modern day Dale Carnegie, Travis Alexander was a sleazy huckster in my eyes. A Google search of the company revealed an investigation by the SEC and FTC, as well as complaints by disgruntled customers and employees who were doomed to fail because of their placement in the pyramid.Enter Jodi Arias at a Prepaid Legal seminar. Travis Alexander was smitten. He and Jodi soon hooked up. The devout Mormon, who was, by church tenets, expected to remain a virgin until he married a virginal Mormon woman, broke a key church law (probably not for the first time). He and Jodi, to the consternation of his friends, became a couple. Jodi was so taken by Travis that she became a Mormon. Travis was Jodi's dream, but for Travis, not so much. During their relationship, Travis constantly cheated while in his quest for a good Mormon wife. What great irony! Travis and Jodi were having increasingly kinky sex while Travis was courting one young Mormon virgin after another.Jodi eventually discovered that Travis was cheating on her, and their official relationship ended. She was devastated, jealous and, most of all, furious. The tires on his car, as the tires on his latest paramour's car, were slashed. According to his roommates, Travis never locked the doors to his house, and Jodi entered at will.What would most people do with an unstable ex-girlfriend who was clearly coming unhinged? Perhaps secure the house and possibly get a restraining order? Travis took a novel approach. He continued to communicate with Jodi because he missed their sexual marathons. Even after she moved back to California, he continued to send mixed messages. Jodi was a mentally unstable woman in love. Rather than celebrating her departure from Arizona and cutting all ties, Travis could not let his sex pal go. His friends who knew about the relationship, and had an uneasy feeling about Jodi from the beginning were helpless when Travis, who called her a stalker and a whore, continued to act as a friend to an increasingly unglued woman. She had been reduced to a booty call.Picture Perfect read like a psychological thriller. Shanna Hogan's writing style was almost flawless, andshe clearly did her research. This book was an eye-opener. I can understand why the supporters of Travis Alexander are unhappy about this tawdry story of their friend, but it is crystal clear to me that Jodi Arias's own words played no direct role in the writing of the book. She, who at one point thrived on media attention, refused to be interviewed.Just to reiterate. Travis Alexander was not a nice person in my eyes, but he did not deserve the violent slaughter at the hand of Jodi Arias. She will never live outside prison walls, which by her own words is a fate worse than death. The jury returned the correct verdict.

As an avid, admittedly obsessed, follower of the Jodi Arias murder case, I watched every minute of the trial and have read everything I can get my hands on about this case. For that reason, I pre-ordered "Picture Perfect" and waited not-so-patiently for the book to arrive. I was not disappointed. While the book did not offer any new insights into the case, it was still a very fascinating re-telling of the events, and proved to be hard to put down. I had heard literally every detail in this book already, either during the trial or through out-of-court articles or documents, or interviews with the friends and families of the key players. But the author, Shanna Hogan, beautifully wove the details into chronological order, giving a more comprehensive and accurate perspective of the circumstances of the case. I often found myself thinking, "Oh, so THAT's when that happened..." or "So that's why that fact was so important at trial..." while reading the book.During the trial, we were subjected to accounts of Jodi's and Travis's sexual exploits, ad nauseam. Additionally, we saw text messages and emails, and heard voice recordings full of obscene language. My fear was that any book written about this case would be weighed heavily with semi-pornographic and offensive material, by the nature of the trial testimony - when the salacious events had little to do with the actual murder. Shanna Hogan does not stoop to that level. While sexual encounters between the two are mentioned, she does not go into detail about them, and the offensive language is almost non-existent. I think I was half-way through the book before I came upon an offensive word - and that was a direct quote made by Jodi. Another thing I liked about Shanna Hogan's writing style is that she did not change any of the character's names. That made it easier for those of us who have closely followed this case to put words and actions with actual faces. I had never read any of Shanna Hogan's books prior to "Picture Perfect", but I think I have become a new fan now and will be reading more of her books.I am captivated by true-crime stories, and read a lot of non-fiction books. It is very rare that I give any non-fiction book a 5-star rating, as I have for "Picture Perfect." Quite often, authors tend to take a lot of poetic license, and their written version bears little resemblance to the facts of the case, or the author will allow their own prejudices to lean heavily to one side or the other. I did not get that impression with Shanna Hogan. Her version of events virtually mirrored those presented during the trial; and she did not offer suppositions that could not be reasonably substantiated. For instance, she did not take the reader into the master bathroom during the murder itself. Only two people know what truly happened in that bathroom; one is deceased and the other is a self-admitted, proven liar. She tells us what the investigators believe happened, based on the evidence, but she does not dare to "suppose" what the step-by-step actions were taken by Jodi and Travis that fateful day. In my opinion, the fact that she does not cross that line from evidence to supposition-posing-as-evidence adds to her credibility as a true-crime author.The only negative I had was that there were no new revelations to come from this book. Everything in this book was taken directly from trial testimony, police reports, and television interviews and newspaper articles. While the chronological order of events was helpful, I did not feel like I learned anything after reading this book. However, as someone who has followed this case so intensely, I acknowledge it would be almost impossible to surprise me with any new details about this case, so I do not even factor that in my review. The reader who has not followed this case as closely as I have would most likely find this book fascinating and a page-turner with one shocker after another.All in all, "Picture Perfect" is an exceptionally well-written account of the events leading up to and after the murder of Travis Alexander, for which Jodi Arias has been tried and convicted of 1st degree murder and is currently awaiting sentencing.

I seen snippets of Jodi Arias interview with the police on one of those true life programs and I seen lots of folk chatting about it on true crime book groups. Jodi was arrested for the brutal murder of her ex boyfriend, this book looks at Travis's life before and after meeting Jodi.The first chapter is Travis's body being found then chapter two and the first half of the book looks at Travis childhood all the way up to adulthood, his career path/choices and meeting Jodi. We also learn about Jodi growing up and her issues. Their meeting, relationship, breakup and staying in touch with a very toxic relationship. Then the body discovery, the damage to the body (not for the faint hearted) and the book (this version) includes 8 pages of photos, some of the crime scene, some from the camera. The interviews with Jodi, her arrest and thereafter.I actually had to google to see what the final sentence was which you would think the book included. I imagine anyone who knew Travis would be devastated by this book, first half would be fine as it is just about him as a person and what he went through in life. However the details of the brutality of his murder and the details of his relationship and physical encounters with Jodi. Travis was a devout Mormon and Jodi held back on nothing when it came to their physical relations, the book briefly covers the horror those who knew him felt on discovering a different side to the religious devout guy they knew.Even now Jodi continues to appeal and raise complaints against those involved in her case. The book also highlights she gave many interviews in her earlier detainment before she was charged and before she changed her story. I think true crime fans will find her an interesting study, 3.5/5 for me.

This book gave me a real insight into who Travis was and what his personality was like, so having read it I feel a bit like I know him in a way, which made it harder to read about what happened on 4th June and the days he spent until he was found.I've read this, Picture Perfect and Conviction and they all give snippets of info the others don't. If you want to get to know Travis better, this is the book. I certainly came away feeling more sad about him as I had with the other two books because this did go into detail about things he used to say and how he lived his life, whereas the other two didn't cover this as much.

Unbeatable riveting read, Hogan manages to capture the heartbreaking atmosphere of this tragic real life murder which reads straight like a Hollywood script, eerie descriptions of lights left to twinkle alone in the darkness put you right there at the scene! , one or 2 other books on this story bring to mind a hastily written synopsis of Hogans heart racing description of the stalking , murder and courtroom dramatics , once you pick it up get ready to read into the wee hours till you finish , a brilliant descriptive well written book that will leave you breathless for the right outcome , highly recommended to any connoisseur of true crime books , you won't regret buying this book

Being an avid follower of the Casey Anthony story , I was struck by a lot of similarities in the personality types of the two women. In fact although the two cases appear very different on the surface , the only real difference was that Casey Anthony was incredibly lucky not to leave " the smoking gun " that her jury were desperately looking for.Jodi Arias was not so fortunate.

I did watch the whole trial and keep up to date on various forums so was disappointed after getting this book that i already knew everything in it. It talks about jodi before the murder but nothing that was surprising. It annoyed me that shanna talks about details given by jodi during the trial as fact when we all know that jodi lies but as a book it was a good read.