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Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite
A Spider's Web: Diary of a Senior Online Love Scam by Bessie Larson is a painful, yet engaging tale based on a true story, a tale that brilliantly documents the author’s experience of a love scam. She set out to find love, investing time, emotions, and money online only to be left devastated with the startling and painful realization it was all a scam. While documenting her online romance with Swan, the author reveals salient tips and behaviors that readers should watch for to detect signs of a scam.
This book is written by someone whose friend once remarked that she is a good reader of people; however, she couldn’t immediately recognize the signs of a romance scam when she started dating online, a mistake that would eventually cost her heartbreak and financial losses. The story is filled with drama and explores the psychology of online romance scammers. Written in the form of a journal, it captures chats and dialogues between the author and her online love interest, Swan, and each chapter ends with a warning, a tip, or an insight into the common practices and behaviors to watch out for. The author highlights some of the common characteristics of scammers like wanting to get off social media platforms quickly and using email or texting to communicate. Most scammers present themselves as offshore workers or in jobs like engineering, oil rigging, and military service. Most of them claim to be widowers or widows and take superficial interest in the work of those they scam.
A Spider's Web: Diary of a Senior Online Love Scam is an engaging book written in crisp and excellent prose, a must-read for anyone interested in online dating. It is resonant and beautifully articulates themes of love, scamming, and online dating. Bessie Larson’s book is both a strong warning for readers — especially women in their mid-seventies — to be wary of online dating. It is engaging and entertaining and the author’s honesty rubs off strongly on readers. It is, indeed, a compelling eye-opener that creates awareness of the pitfalls of online dating.
