There Is No Ethan

This book is frustratingly unbalanced. There needed to be about 100 fewer pages about Anna, Gina, and “British Anna's” similar experiences with the person they knew as Ethan Schuman, and at least 100 more about the ethical issues of “aspirational identity” (the subject of the author's doctoral dissertation) that Ethan represented, and the trio's attempts to pursue legal redress against him.

As it stands, I spent most of the book wondering how these intelligent, accomplished women could have possibly been duped for months (in some cases years), and smugly reassuring myself that I wouldn't have fallen for Ethan's lies. And yet...

[He] was skilled at pressing just the right buttons and displaying the perfect amount of vulnerability to somehow stop otherwise rational people from behaving normally. His masterful cunning, combined with the intensity of their emotional connection, heightened by months of anticipation, allowed her to show him unprecedented levels of understanding and empathy, and to continue talking to him, instead of writing him off.