One of the things I’m most grateful for is that I met my spouse way back in the 90s (!) and removed myself from the dating scene ridiculously early. There is No Ethan by Anna Akbari highlights just one of the many risks of dating in the twenty-first century: the prevalence of catfishing.
I had two big problems with this book, and one of them involves major spoilers, so I’ll start with the first, non-spoilery problem. I just don’t think this story is as compelling as the author thinks it is. The tagline is “How three women caught America’s biggest catfish” and I don’t I feel like Ethan was, in fact, the biggest catfish. Sure, he had a catfishing history going back for more than a decade, and strung some women along for years at a time, but his crimes were all emotional; he never got the women to send him money, and in fact, he even sent flowers and gifts to some of the women. I suppose you can measure catfishing however you want, and the hyperbolic line is going to sell more books than one that refers to “a random catfish”, but still. I was expecting a much more criminal situation in this true crime book.
Mostly, I was not compelled because I didn’t find Ethan compelling. This isn’t to victim blame any of the women. They were valid in their reasons for being attracted to him, even if I would have found him obnoxious. Ethan created strong emotional connections with his victims by drawing them into long, involved, deep conversations. I think we all crave that sort of validation and connection. His just came with a big helping of obnoxious masculine attitudes, conservative politics, and the occasional negging and other emotional abuse tactics. If a friend of mine was dating a guy like Ethan, I’d be secretly wishing she’d break up with him, and trying to find ways to subtly plant that idea in her head.
I felt like this book was overlong, as Anna gave us play-by-plays of the endless conversations that she and Ethan had, and then later we got chapters detailing some of his exchanges with the other two women (British Anna, and Gina) who eventually teamed up with the author to find Ethan’s true identity and try to stop him from victimizing more women with his bizarre fake romance schemes. I can see how if you found Ethan attractive and intriguing, these long conversations would be compelling, but I found myself fed up with his behavior and attitude well before the author was.
Now I need to get into MAJOR SPOILER TERRITORY, although in all fairness, the author has written about this experience in news articles and her own blog, so if you are already familiar with this story, you already know it. But I can’t get into my other big problem with There Is No Ethan without talking about who Ethan really was. I’m putting some line breaks in to protect you if you don’t want to be spoiled. Read on at your own risk!
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Ethan, as it turns out, was actually a woman named Emily. An apparently brilliant and accomplished med student who somehow had time to maintain elaborate fictional relationships with women on overlapping timelines, as some sort of… stress release? Her motivation never really made sense to me.
My problem with this was the really weird sort of homophobic (and possibly transphobic) tone of her victims’ reaction to learning specifically that Ethan was actually A WOMAN. Somehow the fact that they had been seduced by A WOMAN pretending to be a man was worse than being seduced by a man who was lying, abusing, and manipulating them. And lest you think that this specifically came down to some sort of betrayal of female solidarity, at least one of the victims asked Emily repeatedly what she was doing while they had cybersex… like it was OK if a guy was getting off while lying about his identity, but if a woman was doing it, it was somehow really gross.
This isn’t to belittle the sense of betrayal that these women felt around learning that someone that they had been vulnerable and intimate with lied to them and in some cases used those lies to manipulate them into sharing sexual fantasies and engaging in cybersex. It’s that I don’t think that the lie about their gender is somehow any worse than any of the other lies.
Am I making sense?
A lot is made of the fact that Emily became an OB-GYN and that her victims were worried she might victimize her vulnerable patients, but there was no indication that Emily ever went after people who she met in person, only people she discovered online. They end up going on a big campaign to try to get Emily removed from various programs and jobs over the years, none of which work, probably because most organizations aren’t going to put too much credence on claims submitted by random people with no connection to that organization, especially when it’s debatable whether Emily’s actions were criminal or just really awful.
The whole tone of this book just got really weird after Akbari, British Anna, and Gina work out Ethan/Emily’s true identity. I understand their hurt and betrayal, and I understand the desire to receive some sort of restitution for the hurt and betrayal, but I don’t really understand how they expected to get the outcome they desired with the methods they used. And again, the whiff of homophobia and sort of trans panic just really gave me the ick.
This book is probably appealing if you enjoy true crime and/or if you are fed up with online dating and want the catharsis of hearing about a worst case scenario. Personally, I just don’t feel comfortable recommending it.
CWs and TWs: In addition to the weird homophobic and transphobic vibes, there’s ample depictions of emotional abuse, discussions of other dishonest relationships, infidelity, illness, and death. There’s also lots of strong language and a bit of sexual discussion.
Source and Format: I read this as an audiobook from Seattle Public Libraries.
Book Bingo Prompts
SAL/SPL Adult Summer Reading: Suggested by an Independent Bookseller. I saw this recommended several times on the Third Place Books social media accounts. Normally, I would have gone into the store and purchased a copy, as I like to support an indie bookstore when fulfilling this prompt, but I’m actually on a temporary book buying ban for a very good reason that I’ll blog about soon. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t shell out for a hardcover since I ended up not liking the book that much, and I promise I’ll go buy several books at TPB when my no-buy is over.
Book Bingo Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 19 out of 25 prompts complete. 3 bingos.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 16 out of 25 prompts complete. 2 bingos.
SAL/SPL Adult Summer Reading: 18 out of 23 prompts complete, 5 bingos.
SBTB Summer Romance: 5 out of 24 prompts complete, 0 bingos.