I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: December 29, 2023] Scammer

We get a surprisingly large number of self-published books at my library.  Most of them I don’t look at, but some look interesting enough to flip through.

This one was packaged with a ribbon around in (and a bookmark), and I loved the text on the back of the book.

“Is Caroline Calloway a scammer?  No.” — The New York Times.

Suffice it to say I had never heard of Caroline Calloway and had no idea what she was scamming, but there was something about this book that made me want to read it.

The book sums up the scamming.  In fact, it is a memoir (of sorts) about her time as a scammer.  She calls this a daybook–the kind of book you could read in a day–although it took me a few days.

The book is set up in 67 vignettes.  And I found the narrator to be quite engaging.  She talks about her family and upbringing a bit, but for the most part she gets right to the scamming.

She always wanted to go to Cambridge University.  She was rejected twice and then lied (a bit) on her transcript to get in on the third try.  She also found an editor (through trickery) and secured a book deal although she had no intention of writing the book.  When she blew through the $100,000 advance and now had to pay it back, she started an OnlyFans account, did some topless photos and made the money back in a few months.

But the crux of the book is her ex-friend Natalie Beach.  She and Natalie met at a writing class in NYU.  They hit it off and became best friends.

Caroline says that she was in love with Natalie but never did anything about it.  Rather, they worked together writing captions for the Instagram account that Caroline created.  Caroline says that she bought 40,000 followers for $5 (this was a few years before there was any kind of legislation about it–I don’t know anything about that so I’m not saying anything more).

Caroline says that she eventually put Natalie on her payroll.

Caroline also became addicted to Adderall and became something of a nightmare to herself and Natalie.

When she bailed on her book deal, it cost Natalie a lot of money as well (obviously) and Natalie had been struggling working other crappy jobs too (although Caroline says that Natalie’s family is quite well off).

The tone of the book is pretty interesting.  She admits to all of her scams and flaws–getting ahead of the scandals sort of.   But she also is not beneath some self-aggrandizement.  She is, I believe, an influencer after all.

It also turns out that Natalie wrote an essay about Caroline in The Cut.  I don’t know what The Cut is, but it seems to print long-forms essays.  Anyhow Natalie’s essay is written to reveal the truth about Caroline.  Caroline talks about the essay and refutes some of it in the book too.

Throughout the book she says she was born to be a writer.  So why did she bail on the book?  Because they book she and Natalie were working on was kind of lame and stupid and, she felt, beneath her writing skills.

And why did she write this book?  Well, because Natalie was about to publish a book and there was no way Caroline was going to Natalie’s book come out first.

As I said, I didn’t know anything about Caroline, which means I was probably a good reader for the book.  I did take her side of the story, although I feel a little bad for Natalie.  But it also sure seems like Natalie is working to capitalize on this whole thing as well.

Maybe they are still working together, just pretending to scam everyone.  And I’m cool with that too.