ribbenkast's review

Go to review page

2.0

"I was approached by a security-awareness networking group, who asked me to join an online panel of romance-fraud experts. I was amazed – how on earth could I possibly be considered an expert?'"

Girl, I am also confused. The author is by no means an expert on the presented topic. She's neither scholar nor journalist, or victim of the prescribed romance fraud. This book is just a word vomit of her covid-lockdown hyperfocus.

The author basically became twitter famous for wasting these romance fraudsters time by keeping them engaged with her weird stories for a long time. Those bits are immediately quite funny.
Those text excerpts combined with actual victims accounts and the ocassional educational nugget kept me going. But if you really want to learn about this topic find another book.

The book didn't deliver me what was promised. I picked this up because I realise there is a lot of victim blaming going on when it comes to romance fraud. I was hoping this book would give me a different perspective and show me the ins and outs of the psychology behind becoming a victim. There where a bunch of victims accounts in the book. I understood all of these women to a certain degree, but the scams described where elleborate and believable. I still don't know what goes through the heads of the people who think @realkeanureeeves87 is the real Keanu Reeves, that he is talking to them, let alone be in love with them and then proceed to send the super rich multi millionaire Keanu Reeves a £1000 Steam gift card.

Becky Holmes is just a deeply weird and insecure person I think. Despite this book having nothing to with that, she kept mentioning her weight and losing weight so much it was deeply triggering my ED. When walkin us through a scammers handbook given to people kept in captivity who are forced to scam people to pay of their debts al she comments on is that at age 42 she is considered unattractive and gets offended by that. 
Furthermore, the author was weirdly gross about the real live celebrities and regular men that have their fotos stolen for such scamms. At one point going on a long tangent about wanting to find Liam Neeson's dick picks. I felt gross reading that. It's as if she forgot that despite having their pictures stolen, these men are also real people.
There where multiple times in the book where Holmes centered herself in the narrative despite the fact that the subject has nothing to do with her. She ends the book by saying she got over her imposter syndrome. I think she did all this in an attempt to be more relatable, but al I heard is: me me me me me me.

Lastly, the fact that most of these scams origin from Nigeria is handled with a "revoking my woke card" joke, followed by what I think is a gross racist overexaggeration of Nigerian scammers doing murder and blood magic in order to scam better. 
I think she accidentally stumbled into a much bigger story about the circle of exploitation and colonisation but that would require more research and way less HaHas and Holmes appears way to dense to see that. 

Ultimately, I don't think Becky Holmes had the grace to handle such a sensitive topic. A massive bummer. I do think it's possible to write such a book with humor, but you need a lot more journalistic integrity. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...