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Keanu Reeves is Not in Love With You: The Murky World of Online Romance Fraud by Becky Holmes
ribbenkast's review
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Racism, Trafficking, Stalking, Colonisation, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic
katykelly's review
5.0
Intensely relevant, relatable, riveting stories and background to life-changing scams.
The author navigates breezily between chatty background, personal history and observations, to her own hilarious interactions with scammers, and then the upsetting and soul-baring stories of people conned by promises of love and commitment into handing over their money.
A hard path to navigate, but I found myself crossing my legs in merriment at screenshotted conversations of silly place names and murders one minute, then in tears at the heartbreak and loss of victims the next.
Holmes started a deep dive into Twitter with pandemic lockdowns in full swing (well we all had to do something), and it wasn't long before "a sudden DM deluge and I had military men falling out of every orifice. Well, sadly that's not true, but you know what I mean."
With a lot of research in this, all cited, this feels like a thorough examination of the recent history of online romance scams, the psychology used in them, some social commentary on where and why, and the (often rubbish) reactions and assistance available.
My eyes feel opened after reading this. I've many times deleted friend requests from international strangers, deleted Nigerian prince-type emails, and feel fortunate not to have been at a vulnerable place in my life when I've used dating sites and been more open to suggestion and convincing stories.
Holmes' interactions with scammers are just perfection, and the perfect antidote to the real stories interspersed between them, which show a range of long and short cons carefully designed to ruin lives.
A timely reminder to everyone out there to keep your personal details safe, to have your wits about you when chatting to strangers, and to not take Keanu Reeves' (or in my case Taron Egerton's) deep admiration for you at face value. Shame that.
With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.
The author navigates breezily between chatty background, personal history and observations, to her own hilarious interactions with scammers, and then the upsetting and soul-baring stories of people conned by promises of love and commitment into handing over their money.
A hard path to navigate, but I found myself crossing my legs in merriment at screenshotted conversations of silly place names and murders one minute, then in tears at the heartbreak and loss of victims the next.
Holmes started a deep dive into Twitter with pandemic lockdowns in full swing (well we all had to do something), and it wasn't long before "a sudden DM deluge and I had military men falling out of every orifice. Well, sadly that's not true, but you know what I mean."
With a lot of research in this, all cited, this feels like a thorough examination of the recent history of online romance scams, the psychology used in them, some social commentary on where and why, and the (often rubbish) reactions and assistance available.
My eyes feel opened after reading this. I've many times deleted friend requests from international strangers, deleted Nigerian prince-type emails, and feel fortunate not to have been at a vulnerable place in my life when I've used dating sites and been more open to suggestion and convincing stories.
Holmes' interactions with scammers are just perfection, and the perfect antidote to the real stories interspersed between them, which show a range of long and short cons carefully designed to ruin lives.
A timely reminder to everyone out there to keep your personal details safe, to have your wits about you when chatting to strangers, and to not take Keanu Reeves' (or in my case Taron Egerton's) deep admiration for you at face value. Shame that.
With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.
varvara12's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
lincskay's review
3.0
First part was great - the Twitter-related stuff was funny and what Becky is best at. The second half was trying to be more serious and educational but it fell a little flat for me as there wasn’t the depth of knowledge I’d like to have seen.
samwescott's review against another edition
3.5
A mixed bag! Interesting info, but I’m really exasperated with this author.
So, I originally picked this up because I thought it was going to be about parasocial relationships and celebrity worship because I have an in-law who is actually worryingly obsessed with Keanu Reeves (she got ahold of his mom’s phone number somehow and it was all very troubling). But when the subtitle set me to rights I was still very interested because scams and the overlap with modern internet culture is fascinating.
And when this author was talking about the scams, I’ll admit I was riveted. I think this book was at its absolute best when she was interviewing victims of romance fraud. She treats them with a lot of care and they all seem very articulate about their emotional experiences and even have great suggestions for mitigating this problem in the future. The author’s exasperated reporting on the lack of accountability from banks, emotional resources for victims, and adaptability from the criminal justice system was UK-specific, but emblematic of the general dismissal of these crimes.
I did have a lot of discomfort with the way Becky talks about the scammers once we get into the chapters about international trends in Ghana, Nigeria, and Malaysia. She mentions in concerning brevity about reports of human trafficking related to pig butchering scams and then doesn’t seem to let the knowledge that the scammers she so gleefully teases on Twitter might actually be victims themselves. It didn’t seem to change her interactions with them at all while it fundamentally changed the way I think about scammers. Her stupid jokes with Twitter scammers about being a murderous cannibalism and making bathroom humor puns with fake gift card codes weren’t funny to start with and majorly dragged the first 30% of the book, but after the trafficking information was dropped, they seemed tone deaf and cruel as well. There was a death threat message she read with the sole purpose of expressing how angry and scary it was with no acknowledgement that while misdirected and not at all exonerative, some of things he said about England needing to atone for its centuries of colonization and resource theft was true. That discussion would require self-awareness and nuance and I don’t think Becky is up for that.
Also why was she constantly apologizing for the English in the messages she copied? She made such a big fuss about the spelling and grammar and it was so annoying. How many languages do you speak, Becky? Can you manage twelve simultaneous chats in a second language that feel modern and grammatically correct and appropriately casual? I doubt it. Focus on the extortion and scamming, not the language barrier.
Finally, I was so, so irritated by the constant self-deprecating humor than hinged on the author’s size. It’s lazy and unfunny and was so distracting the entire book. This author in general had a sense of humor that did not click with me. The constant sex-puns and asides about wanting cake or liking to pet puppies felt like trying to read an interesting book about an important topic while wading through a sea of boomer Facebook memes. I could picture the minion memes that could have been made out of some of her one-liners. She’s only in her forties. Is it because she’s British??
So, yeah. Hated the minute recounting of conversations she had on Twitter and her fat jokes and I don’t trust her talk about international labor trafficking or the lasting effects of colonialism. BUT, the book was still decent, which is a testament to the topic. The firsthand accounts and sympathy with which she holds the victims of these scams was notable and appreciated. It’s a good enough book for you to give a relative who might be vulnerable to this kind of fraud. But I do look forward to the day when this topic is taken more seriously so we can get better, more nuanced books written about it by different authors who won’t make jokes about their back fat.
So, I originally picked this up because I thought it was going to be about parasocial relationships and celebrity worship because I have an in-law who is actually worryingly obsessed with Keanu Reeves (she got ahold of his mom’s phone number somehow and it was all very troubling). But when the subtitle set me to rights I was still very interested because scams and the overlap with modern internet culture is fascinating.
And when this author was talking about the scams, I’ll admit I was riveted. I think this book was at its absolute best when she was interviewing victims of romance fraud. She treats them with a lot of care and they all seem very articulate about their emotional experiences and even have great suggestions for mitigating this problem in the future. The author’s exasperated reporting on the lack of accountability from banks, emotional resources for victims, and adaptability from the criminal justice system was UK-specific, but emblematic of the general dismissal of these crimes.
I did have a lot of discomfort with the way Becky talks about the scammers once we get into the chapters about international trends in Ghana, Nigeria, and Malaysia. She mentions in concerning brevity about reports of human trafficking related to pig butchering scams and then doesn’t seem to let the knowledge that the scammers she so gleefully teases on Twitter might actually be victims themselves. It didn’t seem to change her interactions with them at all while it fundamentally changed the way I think about scammers. Her stupid jokes with Twitter scammers about being a murderous cannibalism and making bathroom humor puns with fake gift card codes weren’t funny to start with and majorly dragged the first 30% of the book, but after the trafficking information was dropped, they seemed tone deaf and cruel as well. There was a death threat message she read with the sole purpose of expressing how angry and scary it was with no acknowledgement that while misdirected and not at all exonerative, some of things he said about England needing to atone for its centuries of colonization and resource theft was true. That discussion would require self-awareness and nuance and I don’t think Becky is up for that.
Also why was she constantly apologizing for the English in the messages she copied? She made such a big fuss about the spelling and grammar and it was so annoying. How many languages do you speak, Becky? Can you manage twelve simultaneous chats in a second language that feel modern and grammatically correct and appropriately casual? I doubt it. Focus on the extortion and scamming, not the language barrier.
Finally, I was so, so irritated by the constant self-deprecating humor than hinged on the author’s size. It’s lazy and unfunny and was so distracting the entire book. This author in general had a sense of humor that did not click with me. The constant sex-puns and asides about wanting cake or liking to pet puppies felt like trying to read an interesting book about an important topic while wading through a sea of boomer Facebook memes. I could picture the minion memes that could have been made out of some of her one-liners. She’s only in her forties. Is it because she’s British??
So, yeah. Hated the minute recounting of conversations she had on Twitter and her fat jokes and I don’t trust her talk about international labor trafficking or the lasting effects of colonialism. BUT, the book was still decent, which is a testament to the topic. The firsthand accounts and sympathy with which she holds the victims of these scams was notable and appreciated. It’s a good enough book for you to give a relative who might be vulnerable to this kind of fraud. But I do look forward to the day when this topic is taken more seriously so we can get better, more nuanced books written about it by different authors who won’t make jokes about their back fat.
amydarcy's review against another edition
funny
informative
fast-paced
4.0
genuinely funny and accessible book about a really misunderstood area of crime - felt less like a traditional nonfiction book and more like listening to a friend monologue about their latest hyperfixation for several hours. the case studies were v well done and really humanised this issue.
while i appreciated that this was a v victim-focused book, I do wish the scammers’ background could been explored a bit more so that their motives could be better understood beyond the generic ‘evil man wants money’ explanation. also, could’ve done without the repeated mentions of how attractive the author found certain men - just didn’t think it was necessary in the context of the book.
#netgalley #arc
while i appreciated that this was a v victim-focused book, I do wish the scammers’ background could been explored a bit more so that their motives could be better understood beyond the generic ‘evil man wants money’ explanation. also, could’ve done without the repeated mentions of how attractive the author found certain men - just didn’t think it was necessary in the context of the book.
#netgalley #arc