Read This Book…

Rachel DeLoache Williams first met Anna Sorokin, who was going by Anna Delvey, in New York City. They traveled in the same social groups and eventually found their paths crossing and a friendship sprang up between them. Williams details how she and Anna became close: Going out to eat together, working out together, enjoying spa treatments…all of which Anna almost always footed the bill for. Rachel was impressed by Anna and her ambitions to open up an arts center, and was dazzled by her wealth. She was a junior employee at Vanity Fair, so while she had a nice job and was in proximity to wealth and fame, she didn’t have the kind of money that Anna threw around, and she enjoyed her friend’s generosity. She would occasionally get drawn into Anna’s personal drama, but that was nothing compared to what would eventually be the demise of their friendship: Anna invited her to a luxurious resort in Morocco, then left her footing the $60,000 credit card bill. When Anna ghosted Rachel without repaying her, Rachel went to the New York State Attorney’s office.

This is a fascinating memoir that definitely reads like fiction, so it’s no surprise to me that Netflix has a miniseries in the works (produced by Shonda Rimes, no less!). My big takeaway from this book is that you can know the major highlights of this story and think, “How can anyone be so gullible as to put tens of thousands of dollars on their own credit card for a friend who was clearly so sketchy?” But Rachel walks you through her story, and her friendship, and she doesn’t ask you to feel sorry for her, but she does want to show how easy it is to trust a friend, and how easy it is to want to help out that friend in a pinch. Not all of us would make the same choices that Rachel did, but I couldn’t help but feel compassion for the extremely awkward position she was put in, and the way that Anna so deftly manipulated the people around her to get what she wanted. As far as con artists go, Anna is certainly an interesting one, and I felt like this story just showed how much benefit of the doubt is given to wealthy people, or people presumed wealthy, which allows them to get away with so much. This is a good book if you want a stranger-than-fiction tale, and it dives into the messy landscape of friendship and betrayal.