Unable to get json into an array - json

Question

I have this data in a file named books.json that I am trying to get into an array.
{
"date_reviewed":"08/Jan/16",
"fname":"John",
"mname":"",
"lname":"Locke",
"email":"",
"title":"Boxed In!",
"imagelocation":"img\book_covers\BoxedIn.jpg",
"series_name":"Dr. Gideon Box",
"sellerssite":"https://www.amazon.com/Boxed-Gideon-Donovan-Creed-Novel-ebook/dp/B019HANKW8",
"genre":"Thriller,Suspence",
"authorsite":"https://johnlockeauthor.wordpress.com/",
"facebook":"https://www.facebook.com/john.locke.395669?fref=ts",
"fbid":"John Locke",
"twitter":"https://twitter.com/DonovanCreed",
"twitterid":"#DonovanCreed",
"review":"A series you have to be sick to love. I guess that's telling as I do love the series.
The latest in a series from an author that also has a number of other series that I have been devouring for the last couple of years. What makes these series unique is that they are all tied together by the characters that star in each series. So, if you're a fan of one and have not branched out into the others then it is time to go to his author page and start the reading adventure that will take you into the minds of a lethal assassin, a gunfighter and reluctant sheriff, and a private detective made famous by escaping from a deranged kidnapper.
Dr. Box may be brilliant when it comes to saving the life of children written off as lost causes but his activities outside the operating room have left any that know him with a strong desire to see him thrown into the bowels of hell as he surely is the very epitome of demon walking the earth. Good thing that he's the only one in the world that can save a life that others deem impossible. Just pray that if you've ever slighted him that you never show up in his hospital under his care. It will be an encounter you never live to regret.
In this tale Dr. Box is visited by the only man that causes true fear in a doctor who's moral compass was broken at birth. Donovan Creed. An assassin that you do not want to owe a favor to.
Donovan comes to collect. He has the plan to kill a terrorist and in the process save thousands of lives. The only problem, what he wants is the one thing Dr. Box cannot do.
Painted into a box (pun intended) he has no choice but to call on the one person that even Donovan is afraid of. Rose.
Together they come up with a full proof plan. Too bad that Donovan is already two steps ahead and the consequences for Dr. Box are steep and his life may never be the same.
As a fan, I say you have to add this to your library.",
"rating":"5"
}
I then retrieve then encode the data to escape the special characters in the data.
<?php
//Get data from existing json file
$jsondata = file_get_contents("books.json");;
$arr_data = json_encode($jsondata, true);
?>
I tried to then place that in an array but that failed so I thought maybe I had to decode it and place it into the array so I tried this code.
$Adata = json_decode($arr_data, true);
echo $Adata['fname'];
So putting that all together you have the following that produces and error "Warning: Illegal string offset 'fname'"
<?php
//Get data from existing json file
$jsondata = file_get_contents("books.json");;
$arr_data = json_encode($jsondata, true);
$Adata = json_decode($arr_data, true);
echo $Adata['fname'];
?>
I would appreciate any help. My ultimate goal is to get the data into an array so I can feed it to my code to instert it into my DB.

Answer 1

you code edit to this:
$jsondata = file_get_contents("books.json");
$arr_data = json_decode($jsondata, true);
echo $arr_data['fname']; //shoud print out: John