There is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari @annaakbari @justinpricvo @HachetteAudio

the setup…
In 2011, Anna Akbari connected with Ethan Schuman on a dating site. Akbari was no novice to online dating and had rules she abided by…normally. Ethan’s charm and seemingly extraordinary listening skills were disarming and she gave him leeway. Before she knew it, they’d been having constant texting conversations for months, never having seen each other in person or talked to each other. Faced with the choice of continuing to be seduced by this man or letting go, Akbari set on a path doing what she did best…research. What she discovered was shocking, shook her confidence but energized her at the same time.

the heart of the story…
You might wonder how a highly successful woman with a PhD could be hoodwinked like this but as I listened to the hours of messaging, I could “feel” Ethan’s manipulative, me as an outsider. I even could see how I might have been sucked in, probably up to the same point as Anna. When her research led her to two other women he was also in relationship with…simultaneously…she went to work on finding him and taking him down.

the narration…
Akbari narrates the story with Justin Price standing in as Ethan. It was critical to have her give voice to all those text conversations as she shared what she experienced emotionally at the time. It was an important distinction in the storytelling.

the bottom line…
It’s more than a cautionary tale, more akin to an inward psychological study as much as it was an analysis of how Ethan duped so many women who you’d think would know better. Akbari is a sociologist and at times it did feel like a research project. But it’s when she focused on herself that this memoir was the most powerful. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about the choices and concessions we make when our carefully honed instincts tell us otherwise. You should listen to this for yourself to learn the outcomes. It matters.

Book Info

• Release Date: June 4, 2024
• Narrators: Anna Akbari & Justin Price
• Audio Length: 9 hours, 57 minutes
• Publisher: Hachette Audio

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(Thanks to Libro.fm & Hachette Audio for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.)