User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I struggled between two and three stars for this book. It was a really hard read, for reasons I'll outline, but at the end of the day, the juiciness of it tips it over into a three-star. A fast, easy read for summer, at least, even though it genuinely stressed me out and sort of disgusted me.
I found myself having an incredibly hard time with the narrator. It was, to put it mildly, extremely difficult to have a lot of sympathy for her. And this may be because I, too, lived my twenties in NYC, with vague connections to celebrities and the mega-rich, and that makes me give a lot of side-eye to her behavior. But, more than her behavior, it's her painting of the events that make me think she's learned literally nothing from this experience.
Her descriptions of Anna are rooted in her comparisons between her and herself. Anna is mean, nasty sociopathic, cares about material things, about looking cool and being "seen." Ms. Williams stays friends with her because she is just so patient with her, she was raised right, she cares about the right things, you see, and she just cares about her so much that she puts up with her behavior. However, it's a cop-out. She describes what a brat Anna is from the start: actually calling people "peasants," behaving so rudely to Uber and Lyft drivers that it becomes 50/50 as to whether or not they'll actually pick her up. She's quick to describe how much Anna drinks, and even, when Anna acts strangely at a party, uses the phrase, "I was raised to . . .," immediately constructing herself, in the mind of the reader, as wholesome and innocent.
And so there it is: You put up with her behavior because you're so kind, yet . . . you were okay aligning yourself with someone who so blatantly wasn't that way? There's more to the story than this. It's extremely, extremely easy to see that
she liked hanging around with Anna because Anna was (she thought) rich. A Cool Girl. That's it. That's the story. And honestly? To admit that would be totally fine. We all go through that, wanting to be awesome and popular. But I found it incredibly distasteful that she gleefully describes what a shitty person Anna is, and then how she would just NEVER act like that, and meanwhile . . . she's your BFF? Come on. It's so transparent! If she was such an awful person, any person with morals or ethics would not be hanging out with her. I find it telling that she just skims over the part where the other people in her friend group with her and Anna fell away - there were no conversations? You didn't ask anybody why they wouldn't come hang out with you and Anna any more? Literally no one in that friend group was like, "Eh, she's not really that nice, I don't like hanging out with her"? I find that hard to believe. What I think is more likely is that plenty of people did not like Anna, Ms. Williams herself was very aware that she was NOT a good person, but made the decision to ignore her instincts (and, honestly, her actual friends) in order to indulge in spa visits and personal training with celebrity workout instructors. She frequently alludes to Anna having no friends, and being lonely, but uses that fact as a reason for her feeling bad for her, as opposed to a tip-off that she ignored. Yes, so again, she didn't hang out with her because was loaded and ate at THE places and went to THE spas, it's cause Anna was so lonely she felt bad for her. Got it.
Again, if she would just admit how driven she was by her own insecurity and vanity, I honestly wouldn't think anything of it. That's a totally normal, human thing way to behave. But the lengths to which she goes to paint herself as The Perfect Victim made me extremely uncomfortable and actually sort of upset. Because the truth is: the author herself makes sure you know exactly which restaurants she was going to, which spas, and what she was wearing (and how her taste was better than Anna's; when Anna tries to give her a thousands of dollars worth of clothes from Morocco, Williams sniffs that she didn't like any of them). Every single celebrity she had even the slightest bit of contact with for work (Vanity Fair photo assistant) warrants a mention, even though they have absolutely zero to do with anything. I'm a huge Annie Leibovitz fan, but I didn't need to know her entire schedule for the period during which the events of this book take place. Williams herself claims to not care about these things, but there it is in black and white: endless descriptions of "fancy" stuff that has zero to do with the story. It was totally eye-roll inducing. (Just as a side note to those writing about upper-crust NYC: literally nobody outside of Manhattan has heard of the places you're mentioning, and most likely the majority of Manhattanites don't know them either.)
It is actually worrisome to me how little self-awareness she shows when it comes to dealing with the financial mess she got herself into (allowing use of and signing for $70,000 worth of charges because she thought Anna would pay her back). Each time she calls AmEx to look at her case again, a paragraph surrounds the incident detailing how unfair it is, and WHY CAN'T THEY SEE? Honey, all they see is that you charged money and signed for it. That's literally it. There's such a stink of privilege, I could barely read straight.
The truth of the matter is this: if the author had been an average person who charged a crap-ton of money (or even a little bit of money) onto her credit cards because her friend said she'd pay them back, she would've wound up in civil court with legal bills - and if the friend had been broke, as Anna was, she wouldn't have seen a dime. And let's face it: truly average people literally can't afford to do what she did. Williams wants to paint her doing so as her being nice, when it isn't about being nice or accommodating, it's about literally having the privilege to slap down a credit card - and not wanting trouble/stress on your luxurious Moroccan vacation. And I resent her presentation of The Incident as a display of compassion as opposed to one of total privilege. This privilege included the fact that she was lucky enough to work at a major magazine and have major connections that led her to the D.A.'s office. She was even lucky that Anna's crimes were so huge and sweeping that it took her to the federal level of charges; otherwise, I highly doubt AmEx would have waived the money. I have a strong feeling that, having been made aware that their client was entangled with a major news story and had connections to a huge media outlet like Condé Nast, they had, ahem, motivations to just forget the whole thing.
The author never goes into how in the world she still had a job after handing over her corporate credit card and charging $16,000 onto it. How is that possible?! Again, the level of privilege made me wince. She doesn't mention getting called into HR, having to explain herself, nothing. How is that possible? The average person would have been thrown out immediately. You just can't do that! Then again, Vanity Fair was the first to publish her stories regarding her relationship to the Hashtag Fake Heiress, so that might be a clue. There isn't a word of gratitude about it either. She frequently mentions emotional support from friends and family, but seems to have zero perception of how, just due to her status in life, she got off in a way that very few people would. It's actually the exact same privilege that put her in Anna's sights to start with.
Near the end of the book, Williams continues to bemoan, mainly, 1.) people making joke tshirts that say "Free Anna" and "I can wire you $30,000" (LMAO!!!!!), and 2.) Anna being found not guilty of the charges in Williams' circumstances. It's just . . . how can you be so clueless? This story is a story of someone of privilege being taken advantage of because she was so desperate to remain in privilege. It's about someone with nothing fooling the wealthiest of people - those who break the rules every fucking day and get away with it to spend their summers on yachts while some people don't have health insurance - and living a life of luxury without spending a cent. Yes, people find that funny. People find it amusing that you willingly had your credit cards charged $70,000 - that you were in position that you could even HAVE THAT AMOUNT CHARGED and WAIT to be paid back!
To solidify my suspicions about her status before and after the whole debacle, her friend mentions how Williams could sublet her apartment and move in with her, saving her tons of money, and while Williams describes how lovely that is, it doesn't seem like she does it. In fact, she doesn't mention any sort of thoughts regarding how in the hell she would pay all of this money back, should her statement not be cleared. It makes me feel weird: did she get an agent fast enough to know this would all be taken care of after her book deal? Or was that the one thing she was genuinely naive about? She discusses how much she cries and frets, but never does that include, "I'm going to have to move back to Tennessee and live with my parents/I'm going to have to get a second job/I'm going to have to move out of Manhattan to Jersey and have seven roommates," like literally all of the thoughts a person would have. It actually, I think, would have helped her image, that she was actually having to do things she didn't want to because of her mistake.
She describes finding an agent with the same wide-eyed innocent posing she uses throughout the book: why, she HAD to! These people just keep calling her! What else could she do? She was completely indignant when the defense lawyer pointed out her HBO and book deals, as well as how happy she was to, like, NOT pay for things for the majority of her friendship with this woman. My knowledge of law consists primarily of whatever constitutional law statutes were cited by Sam Seaborn on "The West Wing" and I can tell you that absolutely, that is not only the FIRST thing that they would go after, but that the public at large are going to be snickering a bit. If nobody told her that, she hasn't surrounded herself with the right people.
That doesn't mean it isn't traumatic and stressful. That doesn't mean that I'm glad she's depressed or upset. Quite the contrary. But again: self-awareness. It seems like Williams has little to no acknowledgement of how she comes off and as a result, this book may honestly do her no favors in the future - except, of course, in the circles she cares about most. After all, when she confronted Anna with two others at her side - one who had never even met Anna before - the result was the new person paying for Anna to stay at a nearby fancy hotel because she had nowhere to go. Imagine that: in this universe of the uber-rich, you sit in on a person confronting another for stiffing her for $70,000 . . . but, poor her, she has no place to go, but of course, you must be so stressed stealing all of that money, better make sure I book you for a place with a spa! Mind-blowing. All of that, I DO feel sorry about. I feel sorry for her that she hasn't gleaned any kind of wisdom out of this whatsoever, that she can't see the absurdity and patent unfairness that colors every single letter in every single word of her story.
Finally, aside from contriving an image of herself that only a middle schooler would fall for, the writing itself is . . . bad. Like, very bad. Near the end, she goes to Café Gitane with her brother and upon looking at the menu and realizing the food is French-Moroccan, takes it as a sign that she would finally tell her him what happened with Anna. Good God. Even I've been to Café Gitane - more than once (there's my I-Lived-in-Mahattan brag!). YOU KNEW THE FOOD WAS FRENCH-MOROCCAN BEFORE YOU SAT DOWN, THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE KNOWN FOR, COME ON THAT DID NOT HAPPEN THAT WAY. Ugh. It's that, times every paragraph.
Overall, I think an editor really should've steered this book into another direction. A simple pass through a rough first draft should've been indication enough that the tone was all wrong. The best parts were the pages, at the end, when Anna's overall dealings were laid out in detail, with zero perspective from the author. It's truly astounding, and I hope a crime journalist at some point writes a book that is a bit more objective and focuses more on that.
Rating: really liked it
Update Once a scammer, always a scammer? Or maybe a real
con artist? Anna Sorokin aka Anna Delvey has now written, in the third person, of what a wonderful life she has had and selling NFTs (the whole business of which looks like a scam to me, but then I'm not enamoured of digital cryptocurrencies which seem to me to be a complicated form of Ponzi schemes). Her eponymously entitled website, theannadelveyDOTworld has two words as a headline - hit them and it's 'give us yer money' in return for.... nothing. Once a scammer...
__________
Review It is said a picture is worth a thousand words. The author is a photographer. 'nuff said.
Notes on reading This the story of a scam artist and the author, a photographer. Anna Sorokin lives the life of a trust fund babe - on other people's credit cards. When the story came out I thought there must have been some red flags, but no, everyone who was involved says there wasn't one. I kind of wonder if this is cognitive dissonace or Sorokin was such a good actress no one suspected anything.
Sorokin scammed the author out of nearly $70,000 and says to an interviewer when asked about it, 'there are 50, 100 cameras on me, I can't cry on demand' which shows you where her concerns lie. After she had been indicted for fraud and theft etc, but before she went to court, she had sold her story to Netflix. She served 4 years in prison. Since NY law doesn't allow criminals to profit from their crimes via books, videos etc, the money has to go to the many victims first. But that isn't part of the book, sadly.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/fake-heires...
There was a long story about how Anna and friend wanted the author, all three drunk, to go for a midnight dip in a pool and she didn't want to. What is either entertaining or revelatory about that? Endless little scenes, texting and phone conversations drawn out, strange use of language as though the book was fiction. Instead of (yet another) 'I said', it is 'I cried out'. No one does that.
It is obvious that Anna is a psychopath. She has no interest in any kind of relationship outside of having a single best friend for company. My ex-next door neighbour who was a psychopath The Sociopath Next Door and was the same as Anna in that respect. (view spoiler)
[She was a criminal too, but worked - as an accountant - she smuggled drugs and guns in shipping containers of frozen fish. In the tropics you have to move those on as soon as they come off the ship. Not that containers are usually searched anyway (hide spoiler)]. She grooms people, paying out small amounts, to lull them into friendship and then rips them off for huge amounts. She opens an account in one bank, then writes cheques to another just-opened bank account and withdraws the money immediately before they can find out that there wasn't any money, it just was on the computer. She has no emotions good or ill for anyone else at all. Her own father thinks she has a bad character and he didn't know the half of it at that time.
The author does not have an endearing personality in her own book. She comes across as a bit of a freeloader and likes anything that smacks of luxury or status when it's free. I wanted to shake her and say, "How many more excuses are you going to accept, you know Anna is a liar, she's never going to pay you back. Why does it take someone else to finally point you in the way of the police?" It was an exasperating read. 2.5 stars rounded down.
Rating: really liked it
My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams is a 2019 Gallery Books publication.
Several weeks ago, this book popped up on my radar by way of Book Riot. I seem to be on a true crime kick lately, so I checked the book out from the cloud library. Although it hardly lives up to the gushing hype, the story still left me shaking my head, not so much in disbelief that someone would fall for such a scam, but at the unconscionable behavior of people who deliberately set out to con someone.
In this case, I think Anna cased out the group of people in Rachel’s orbit and picked her out of the lineup to be her target. She read Rachel like a book, I’m sorry to say. While some may have the urge to roll their eyes at Rachel’s gullibility, the sad truth is, anyone, at any given time, in a multitude of ways can fall prey to a con or a scam. The best and the brightest amongst us have been victims of clever con artist, so it is important to avoid victim blaming.
That said, I will admit I found Rachel’s personality to be superficial and couldn’t help but notice she had absolutely no problem riding on Anna’s coattails while she was paying all the bills. Just saying. I think her friendship with the ‘German heiress’ was heady and up until the moment things went awry, she was enjoying all the perks handed to her.
I also think Rachel was desperate to hold on to that friendship, even though I think deep down she knew she’d been taken for a ride. She just didn’t want to admit she’d been played- which, of course, is understandable. Still, she allowed things to drag on entirely too long, and most of us would have thrown in the towel and threatened legal action long before Rachel finally caved.
But, enough of my psychobabble analysis. The book is a very quick read and Rachel stays on topic, only detailing the time in her life when she was involved with Anna. Watching Anna operate is infuriating. She was quite convincing, especially if one took her at face value, never questioning her story. It seems Rachel wasn’t the only one to believe Anna’s story.
What Rachel went through was nerve wracking and horrendous. She was the victim of a crime and eventually, she brought the fake heiress down. Good on her.
Rachel seems to have gotten herself sorted out and her life is back on track. She claims she got woke, and changed her way of thinking. Sadly, we all learn that lesson in life at some point, and Rachel is hardly unique it that.
This experience may have helped Rachel mature a bit without leaving her completely cynical. She still strikes me as a person who has some growing up to do and is perhaps a bit defensive. I’m not sure is she grew much stronger, as she did downplay her own egotism while writing this book, but she did find the courage to address her naivete and chagrin. Writing this book was probably cathartic for that bruised ego.
Still, I’m happy Rachel realizes she has a lot to be thankful for, and I’m glad she exposed a grifter and stopped her from taking advantage of other people. While I didn’t find Rachel to be a sympathetic ‘character’, if you will, she did help to bring down a criminal- and she works for my favorite magazine- Vanity Fair- so there is that.
To be clear, despite having said more about Rachel in this review than Anna, Anna is the real bad person in all this, and we should not forget that. I’m glad she is behind bars and we do have Rachel to thank for that.
3 stars
Rating: really liked it
Anna Delvey (Anna Sorokin) is a name that needs no introduction. She is a con artist who fooled the New York elite by posing herself as an heiress. Rachel DeLoache Williams is the author of this book. She was Delvey's friend and was scammed out for more than $62,000 by her. She mentions what all she had to suffer due to her friendship with Anna.
What I learned from this book 1) Is exclusivity a trap? Exclusivity is a term that many people crave during this 21st century. There are a lot of merits to it, especially if you are from the higher tier of your society. Ms. Williams discusses its problems and the other side of it.
“Select patrons-only—it’s a funny idea. Why is exclusivity appealing? We all want to be included. We crave validation, from friends and from strangers. If you'd said that to me then, I'd have been defensive."
2) Humans of New York Why are the people so much obsessed with New York City? It is just another city which is a little bigger compared to others. This was my feeling when I first decided to go to New York.
The moment I hopped onto a yellow cab from JFK airport, I felt a different vibe from the city, which I felt nowhere else in the world. The people, the culture, the buildings, the libraries, the bookstores, and everything was unique. It is impossible not to love this city when you visit NYC for the first time. Books like Humans of New York will increase your love for this city.
When you start to live in NYC, you will have to face several problems. It starts from the basics, like over-the-top rental rates, even if you just want to get a small studio apartment. The straightforward nature of New York people might appear rude to you. You will have to also face a few con artists like Anna Sorokin. The author is trying to discuss this aspect of NYC life in this book.
"New York attracts such a wild range of people: artists and bankers, immigrants and transients, old money and new money, people waiting to be discovered and others who never want to be found. Everyone here has a story to tell—some more elaborate than others. But without exception the people have texture, and texture is character, and character is fascinating."
3) What should you do if your best friend is a sociopath? This is a very complicated question that the author could not answer at a critical juncture in her life. It is one of the main reasons she landed up in all these troubles.
There are a variety of features that a sociopath shows in their life. If you see any red flags like gaslighting, mirroring, grandiosity, etc., you should try to consult a mental health professional to diagnose your friend's condition. You will also require professional help and counseling as the sociopaths gaslighting and manipulation might have intensely hurt your mental health.
It is imperative to diagnose which type of personality disorder your friend has as the management part is different for each disorder. There is also a possibility that your friend has multiple personality disorders simultaneously.
“Anna had no place here. She had no lasting friendships that I had ever seen. She was too insensitive, antisocial, and detached by nature. She would have needed me as a conduit, as someone people could relate to. My acceptance of her would have encouraged others to do the same. Now I understood."
"I read the headlines—Fake Heiress Anna Sorokin Says She Takes Being Branded a 'Sociopath' as a Compliment… Says Her Prison Sentence Was 'a Huge Waste of Time'… Sets Her Sights on Influencerdom with a New Vlog Series. I understood the implications of this sort of coverage, the glamorization of criminality, and wondered who would speak up."
4) How can we fail forward? The author is trying to say the principle of failing forward. She mentions how to bounce back from all the troubles we face in our life.
The most important thing that we should be careful about is not to fall into the regret-feedback loop. The intention of the author was pure. But how convincing the author sounded in executing it by describing the setbacks she had to suffer from Anna is debatable.
“Regret is an unproductive emotion. What's done is done. All any of us can do is choose how to react in each moment—informed by the past, we decide how to move forward. I don't have regrets, but I can see how this happened. And there is something to be learned from that."
My favourite three lines from this book “Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s right.”
"If you asked Anna about her politics, she would tell you that she was decidedly nonpolitical. Politics had little to do with power, she professed. Money was the world's true governing force."
“In times of trauma, life unfolds in a chiaroscuro of peaks and valleys. You feel the highs and lows with amplified intensity.”
What could have been better? After this book was released, one of the main discussions was not about Anna but regarding the author. Was the author an empath who fell into the hands of a person with multiple personality disorders due to her empathy towards her? Was the author a social climber who tried to use her friendship to befriend a rich (who appeared to be at that time) lady to enjoy the luxurious life and social parties and now playing the victim card when she came to know that Anna was a con artist? This is a difficult question to answer as points are pointing to both in this book, and we need a more profound discussion for the same. The author should have been more punctilious while writing this book to avoid this doubt that crept up in the reader’s minds.
But I think our focus should be on Anna and not the author. How she penetrated the crème de la crème of the NYC elite to easily scam them to make them look like a bunch of nincompoops is a matter that should be deeply explored.
Rating 3/5 It is scary to read about people like Anna Delvey who have zero percent empathy. Books like this show why we should be careful when selecting our friends.
Rating: really liked it
The real mystery here is how someone managed to keep her job assisting with photoshoots at VF and get a book deal after being scammed by an obvious con artist (Anna is supposed to come across as malevolent but she mostly seems like someone who acted like she had money and rode that wave until she couldn't.) Rachel's story is a lot of padding wrapped around the few months she spent with Anna living it up until Anna couldn't hide her lack of funds and Rachel was shocked (shocked, I tell you!) that Anna would lie to her. That's it, that's the book.
Now, let's discuss this amazing vacation home I just found in Bermuda. It's located in a gem of a neighborhood, The Triangle, but I am willing to take offers because I found an even better place in Atlantis (underwater views!) so I might be willing to sell or rent (monthly only, pls) if the price is right...
Rating: really liked it
That a person can go through all of this and still be so shallow and vain is incredible - in a bad way. I couldn't enjoy any of this because Williams is so busy trying appear like a saint. People are calling Anna a bad person, but jeez, did Williams learn anything at all from this? I doubt it. It's actually pretty sad how insecure Williams is. RTC cause I got a lotttt to say about this.
Rating: really liked it
“If Anna was the hero, where did that leave me?”
This book can pretty much be summed up in this one quote. Rachel Williams is one of the few people who could actually make me glad she was scammed because she honestly deserved it. She wants so badly to be the star of this story, playing herself up as the victim and writing about how humble and home-grown she is, while completely ignoring the massive amount of privilege she has (she basically gets handed a job at Vanity Fair, but boasts this was due to her just randomly sending an email???? Come on. Just because she’s that gullible doesn’t mean her readers are.) But getting everything handed to Rachel wasn’t enough - she wanted to be seen as something more; which is why she was the perfect person for Anna Delvey to scam.
Rachel tries so hard to center this story around her. But the truth is: no one cares about Rachel Williams or what she went through. We’re here for the salacious, dramatic, glamorous gossip surrounding Anna Delvey and her ability to fraud and lie her way into the lives of the uber rich in Manhattan. There’s so much drivel here about Rachel’s life - relationship problems, dumb overly sentimental stories about her family, some convoluted friendship with her boss???, and endless celebrity and luxury brand name dropping - that my eyes hurt from how much I was rolling them. Anna is treated more of a side story in Rachel’s Very Tragic Woes for being dumb enough to put her credit card down and how unfair the world is for the first time not working out in her favor. She comes across entirely pathetic, irritating, and so painfully average. And that’s the reality of this sad excuse of a book - Rachel Williams is just a painfully average person who wanted desperately to be around someone fabulous and extravagantly wealthy like Anna was portraying herself to be. And the book never really delved into that - in fact Rachel does a fair bit of jumping around that desire and making so many excuses for her own behavior. She tries too hard to convince everyone what a Good Person TM she is, when her story would’ve been so much more relatable if she just admitted how she got drawn into the fantasy.
Not to mention, the writing here is plain bad. It reads like someone so clearly trying to sound like a good writer. It’s littered with bland, cliche metaphors and overly flowery descriptions of clothes and hotels. This book is crying out for an editor to clean it up.
Here’s hoping one of the many documentaries/series being made about Anna are more interesting than this.
Rating: really liked it
After watching Inventing Anna, I got a bit obsessed with researching the real story. Rachel was friends with Anna, so I was curious to hear what she had to say about how everything played out. I had mixed feelings on this story. It was very descriptive, with a lot of rambling and repetition. Rachel is understandably very defensive. The story was a bit boring, but also got quite tense at times. The end was the most interesting.
I enjoyed listening to this audiobook, but I did have a few issues with the story and writing. You can tell that Rachel is not a professional author. She is very descriptive about places in New York City that people would only know if they lived in Manhattan. The book all but skips over the main event which she briefly mentions in the beginning. In essence, Rachel willingly gives her credit cards to pay for the vacation, because she believes Anna will pay her back.
Rachel backtracks to explain her friendship with Anna. She describes how few people liked Anna, because she was judgmental, mean, and rude. Rachel stuck by Anna’s because she was the only one who understood her. Meanwhile, Anna is often harsh to Rachel, and Rachel hides her true feelings in order to fit in with Anna’s (aspiring) socialite status. Who would want to be friends with how Rachel describes Anna? Maybe at first Rachel really did enjoy Anna’s company, but it is likely that Anna paying for everything was a major selling point to being friends with her. Rachel seems like a smart woman, having landed a respectable job in her field. All the clues were there and Rachel ignored them.
Throughout the book, Rachel paints herself as the perfect victim. She definitely went through a distressing situation, but she does little to acknowledge her part in all of it. Rachel forgets to point out that she wanted to go on this lavish, all-expense-paid vacation. She also agreed to hand over both of her credit cards. It was definitely wrong for Anna to plan this trip knowing that she couldn’t pay for it and that Rachel would likely offer her cards. Anna may be the villain, but Rachel did make a mistake in going along with it and trusting Anna, knowing what she was like. In one way or another, they both used each other. I found it challenging to sympathize with the author as she doesn’t believe she did anything wrong. She seems mad that she isn’t the star of her story.
Overall, this was an interesting story to learn about. Rachel had a good point at the end, that we should be careful who we give our attention to. You can tell that Rachel is upset that Anna got off easy, but in a way, Rachel did too. She benefited immensely, going on the 70k vacation, having her credit cards paid off by the company, becoming famous, and landing a major book deal. After watching the show, it is still shocking that this all really happened. This book gave some good insight into the real story of Anna Delvey.
Rating: really liked it
A frustratingly empty tale of a naive and common-senseless person who, despite being in her late 20s, still doesn't know how credit cards work or how to Google "tips for traveling abroad." Nobody with a functioning head on their shoulders would ever be in danger of falling victim to this basic, predictable, and low-stakes "scam."
The real victims are all of us who actually bought the book. Suckers!
Oh, and if you mention Annie Liebovitz 21 times in one book, does she appear?
Rating: really liked it
What a short, strange trip it's been.
Quick read, a little sad, a lot icky. Although I have not read the viral Vanity Fair article by Ms. Williams that launched this book, I have a feeling
My Friend Anna is simply a more fleshed out version of the 2018 exposé, if the transcripts of endless texts can be considered flesh. Publication of this true crime narrative coincided with the title character's conviction of larceny and theft of services just this spring. But Anna Delvey née Sorokin was not convicted of the charge of defrauding Rachel Williams of $62,000 worth of expenses incurred on a trip to Morocco in 2017. That trip, and the fallout that ultimately led to Ms. Sorokin's capture and conviction, are the focus of
My Friend Anna.
Curiously, if you try to read the Vanity Fair article online, you will be blocked by the paywall with this warning:
Access is Everything. That essentially sums up this book. This is a tale of who has access to the coveted things of life (or whatever socialite or socialite wannabe Millennials covet) and who does not.
Although written with crisp pacing and attention to detail (i.e. name and place and label dropping), and an intensity that keeps the pages turning (note, a quick Google search will spoil the plot quicker than you can say "con artist") there's an unsurprising lack of reflection and self-awareness by the author. This story was published to coincide with current headlines, not as an examination of privilege. It is a recitation of events, but offers no insight into Anna as a narcissist or sociopath, or whatever ails her murky brain, or how and why Ms. Williams was so easily duped.
The author is a very sympathetic character in her own story. I felt her crushing anxiety as the AMEX bills came due while Anna's excuses as to why she was trying but failing to repay her friend achieved Kafkaesque proportions. The whole thing just made me sad and feeling in need of a scorching hot shower to wash the grasping tawdriness from my skin. Maybe in a few years Ms. Williams, clearly a gifted writer, will be able to offer a sequel of substance, when she's had time to reflect on how this friendship, and her own behavior, shaped the next chapters of her life.
Rating: really liked it
This was just kind of ....ummm meh for me...Not sure exactly why. Probably because I let some personal opinions take over- just as the author had predicted would happen with some readers.
Your new BFF is not only filthy rich and generous but she is powerful. Despite her very aloof demeanor, Anna travels in the circles of the rich and powerful in NYC. She always seems to be able to get into the best clubs, restaurants and hotels. She likes to be seen, yet it is not clear who Anna really is.
The waters are pretty murky around her family background and where Anna actually gets all her money. So one would think that a person employed by Vanity Fair - who does actually gets to attend some pretty impressive events herself would be onto Anna. I guess this further stresses how convincing Anna was.
I can see how Rachel ( the author) was fooled by Anna. I say this because Anna presented herself "just enough" to fool you. It is a bit of a mystery how Anna was able to connect with so many big name people, how she was able to get into places and how she did produce some large amounts of money on some occasions.
Even though this started out strong I began to feel a bit jaded about it. I began to think okay well even though the author was scammed, I still couldn't help but feel that it is not American Express or the hotels fault that she was scammed. I am not saying I didn't feel bad for her, because I did. What a nightmare it must have been for her. Although I did not think this entitled her to walk away from the money she been tricked into paying. Did she walk away? Guess you will have to read it to find out.
Despite my 3.5 stars I did still find it interesting and would recommend. I think you would really, really enjoy it if you are from NYC or travel in those circles because you would be able to recognize a lot of the places these two "friends" frequented.
Rating: really liked it
I’ve been chewing on this book for a while. Not because I liked it, although I did like it, but because of its unbearable bleakness. Look, this book was always bound to be bleak despite the tawdry true-crime appeal of Anna Delvey. But I truly could not have anticipated a more demoralizing or dystopian portrait of youth in the big city in twenty-first century. Williams’ world is one where everyone is underpaid and overworked, to the point where people abruptly drop off the map, where dream jobs still leave you with double digits in your bank account and the appearance of scrappiness and humility matters far more than the possession of them. I mean, even before Anna begins paying for everything, Williams spends triple digits on single yoga classes and spa visits. I’m not so cruel as to judge her for her spending; as a young New Yorker, I spend my money on silly things all the time. But it’s a stark portrait of the specific kind of status-consciousness that people like Williams and myself wear like an affliction. We work in glamorous industries in a city rife with excesses of old and new money alike. Hot new brunch spots compete with old world glamour and have one thing in common: you aren’t the person who can access them. Maybe if you wore a Batsheva Hay dress and a Susan Alexandra handbag and Intentionally Blank mules. Maybe if you were thinner or had the hair lasered off your chin or purified your insides with $15 Sweetgreen salads or weekly infrared sessions. The prospect of an easy ticket to status (and not just normal status, but the status to like, wear sweatpants to Le Coucou and be let in anyway!) and a key to those closed-off places is intoxicating. In a setting like this, the question isn’t “how could anyone get fooled by Anna Delvey”, but rather “how could you not?”
Rating: really liked it
Dear Diary: Heather told me she teaches people ‘real life.’ She said, real life sucks losers dry. You want to fuck with the eagles, you have to learn to fly. I said, so, you teach people how to spread their wings and fly? She said, yes. I said, you’re beautiful.
Heathers, 1988Rachel DeLoache Williams was never supposed to be famous.
She went to a good school, got a good job in New York, and was on track to be one of the thousands of well-off, well connected people who get into fancy clubs and eat at nice restaurants, but otherwise stay anonymous. But unfortunately for Williams, she happened to cross paths with Anna Sorokin - a woman who was in the middle of a years-long plan to scam her way into the inner circle of New York's wealthy elite by passing herself off as a Russian heiress/socialite named Anna Delvey. Williams was pulled into Delvey's world of luxury and excess, and ultimately was scammed out of over $60,000 by a woman who she thought was her friend, but who'd actually been lying to her about everything from Day One.
After an introduction that basically boils down to Williams telling us that, if anything, she's guilty of being
too nice, we're off to the races. And by that, I of course mean we are forced to sit through several chapters about Williams' life pre-Anna. I understand the impulse to give background information (and also establish how
nice Williams is), but what Rachel DeLoache Williams cannot understand is that no one is reading this book to learn about
her, and her descriptions of how she got her "dream job" (you inventory receipts from photo shoots, ma'am - let's chill out a little, okay?) at
Vanity Fair and her advice on how to do well at your first grownup job does not really serve the story in any way. It also doesn't help that Williams' writing often sounds like a college application essay written by an academically accomplished, but not particularly talented, high school senior:
"New York attracts such a wild range of people: artists and bankers, immigrants and transients, old money and new money, people waiting to be discovered and others who never want to be found. Everyone here has a story to tell - some more elaborate than others. But without exception the people have texture, and texture is character, and character is fascinating."
The real meat of this story, and what we're all actually interesting in hearing about, is a fateful trip to Morocco, where Rachel accepts Anna's invitation to accompany her and a few other friends to an exclusive resort - only to reach the end of their trip and learn that Anna has not paid their bill. In a moment of panic and desperation (and subtle manipulation from Anna, who continued to insist that there was a temporary problem with her trust fund and she'd have access to the money again in a couple of days), Williams offered up her own credit card for the hotel to "hold", and then, when she realized that she didn't have enough to cover the exorbitant bill with her own funds, allowed the hotel to have her
Vanity Fair corporate card. This would be the beginning of a years-long nightmare where Williams desperately tried to get Anna to pay her back, even as Anna's other scams were collapsing around her.
It's easy to judge Rachel DeLoache Williams and her choices. Every single person believes, in their heart of hearts, that they are too smart to be scammed. So it's easy, reading this book from the comfort of your own home, to roll your eyes at the red flags in Anna's behavior that Williams ignored, and to shout at the pages, "Rachel, do not believe Anna when she says you don't need to book a return flight in advance! Rachel, do not give them your corporate card! Rachel,
do not sign that!" But it's easy for us to judge, because we already know how this story ends, and we know what was going on under the surface. Williams was in so deep that she didn't even think Anna was lying to her for the longest time - in fact, when she and some friends eventually confront Anna about the money, they still believe at this point that Anna is simply having issues with her parents, and has been cut off. The idea that everything has been a lie, down to Anna's
name, has not even occurred to them - nobody even
suggests that she doesn't have the money.
I have a lot of sympathy for Williams, first because she truly went through hell because of Delvey - I cannot
imagine being on the hook for $60,000 that someone else owed - and also because Anna Delvey is now out of prison and everyone's kind of...cool with the fact that she stole all this money from people? What's worse, Anna is still stealing from Williams - Rachel DeLoache Williams was in talks with HBO to get her own miniseries telling her side of the story while Anna Delvey was developing her
own miniseries with Netflix...and we know who won that. (God, and the Netflix version is
not kind to Williams.)
The truth is that we all know someone like Rachel. They're nice, and they believe the best of people - not because they're more kind-hearted or generous of spirit than anyone else, but for the simple reason that nothing very bad has ever happened to them. They have spent their lives being treated reasonably well by most people, and life has overall been very kind to them, so they cannot imagine a scenario where this isn't the case.
At it's best, this book is Williams taking the power back from Anna Delvey and laying out, in exhaustive detail, exactly how far her scams and lies went, and the real human damage they caused.
Rachel DeLoache Williams is not a socialite or a real estate developer or a hedge fund manager with money to spare. She's just an ordinary person who let herself be taken in by a con artist, and it almost destroyed her life, and people will judge her and mock her because they want to believe that it could never happen to them.
Rating: really liked it
Ms Williams was a parasite who leeched onto Anna for her money. Women like Ms Williams are called fake friends; she's only there for the money. Friendship is about sharing and splitting the bills. Bottom line: friendship is about 50:50. However in Ms Williams' case, it was only take, take, and take. I don't feel any sympathy for Ms Williams. Why should I? She knew what she was doing until it backfired. "Delvey is a feckless and disorganized small-timer, closer to a hipster grifter..."? Look who's calling the kettle black!
Rating: really liked it
Last year I read
Bad Bloods: Secret and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start-Up and I could not get over how Elizabeth Holmes pulled off one of the biggest scams of the 21st century. This year I randomly heard a news story about a fake German Heiress who scammed a lot of people and committed fraud and I just had to have my fill of white women with white privilege scamming people.
My Friend Anna Is Rachel Williams' account of her "friendship" with Anna, the woman charged with being a fake German Heiresss and scamming a lot of people- including Rachel. I started this book Saturday evening and spent the entire night reading it- I wouldn't say it was addictive reading, I was more confused as to HOW Anna got away with so much and why Rachel let her.
I have a lot to talk about and it will be disjointed, so here are the things that stands out and why I didn't give the book a higher rating:
1. For some reason I have a problem with people under 30 writing a memoir like book- something about it just makes me go "mmmm have you even lived any life yet?" but I know I should judge.
2. This book lacks weight, there is almost no background and really groundbreaking information on Anna. If you are looking for "juicy" or mindless tidbits about Anna was and how she spent her time then by all means go ahead. The book doesn't tell of her motivations, how she got started, what her early family life was etc...
3. I felt Rachel's motivation in writing this book was to ride the publicity wave AND make a case for us to feel sorry that she got scammed. Let me say, it is horrible getting scammed and it is one of the worse feelings ever but when you look at the overall picture- Rachel benefitted so much from this scam *side eyes* Also, I feel like as a self aware individual living in New York you should have a healthy awareness for people who are looking to benefit/profit off you. I don't buy the story Rachel was trying to sell.
4. The title of the book
My FRIEND Anna is a bit misleading because from what I read, I am not sure why Rachel thought she and Anna had a friendship. Everything about their relationships were so surface level, superficial and empty. Yes they seemed to have hang out a lot but seeing and being around someone a lot does not equate friendship- I thought this was common knowledge. Added to that, I don't think Rachel even liked Anna and vice verse... it was SOOO superficial.
5. Before Rachel got scammed by Anna she spent a healthy amount of time benefiting from the things Anna "treated" and foot the bills for. For example, Rachel would go to Anna's $300USD fitness classes on a regular basis, not to mention the dinner/drinks and other things they did together. Maybe its me, but I feel in a friendship you don't have one person picking up the bill most of the time.
6. I could not get over the fact that money got charged to Rachel's company credit card because Anna used it- approximately $16,000USD that wasn't work related and Rachel kept her job....
INSANE!!!
Overall, this is just white privilege at its best. You will not stop shaking your head.
