Scammer

by Caroline Calloway

The first memoir from noted scammer Caroline Calloway.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biography Memoir, Biography, New York, Book Club

178 pages, Hardcover

First published June 16, 2023

Reviews

[Lauren]

Full of absolutely deranged word combinations like “a milky portal had been struck into an opalescent slit, opening a labial tear in time” [Edit: I have been informed this line was plagiarized/but made worse from Carmen Maria Machado, LMAO.], which somehow, incredibly, appears more than once in this slim 150-page “daybook.” Which is, by the way, a misnomer since it took me over a week to struggle through. Based on this, I was a bit confused by “reviews” in major publications that called this book a raving-mad masterpiece, but it makes a lot more sense when you realize that those journalists are not book reviewers, but personal profile writers who didn’t even read the finished book. Also, the author made choices like naming hypothetical future children after said journalists and writing long paragraphs of effusive praise for them in the acknowledgements.

I’m getting off topic, but that’s kind of appropriate for this review. Despite having nearly 70 chapters, or stories, crammed into 150 pages, the author somehow manages to spend most of each story digressing. Again and again, the vignettes are juxtaposed against a completely random faux-academic tangent, like an argument that Bronze Age coins were the first social media or a metaphor of plugging Odysseus into a phone charger, which is then vaguely (at best) or incomprehensibly (at worst) related back to the vignette. With most chapters only standing at 1-2 pages, this means the digressions frequently take up the majority of the chapter. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were used in moderation and with a deft weaving of themes, but the overall effect makes for a book that is mostly boring, often unreadable, and only occasionally nonsensical to the point of entertainment.

I was interested to get into the brain of someone whose only goal has ever been “memoirist,” when memoir is typically the side effect of an interesting life, rather than the driving force. Also it’s worth noting that I don’t really read many memoirs, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. The only real self-reflection we get on this point comes toward the end: “I became a memoirist in the first place because I don't know who I am unless my memories are shared; agreed upon. Beloved beyond me.” So this book was written for validation, which makes a lot of sense. I was hoping for an honest picture of what it’s like to live only for the story. Don’t expect that, you won’t get it!

Much of this memoir has been chop-shopped and Frankenstein-ed from previous published works—Calloway’s confessional instagram captions and her college assignments about academia, and a long essay that she published on a personal site in response to Natalie Beach’s article in The Cut. With the exception of the graphic parts pulled from the essay (more on that later), the reused academic confessionals stick out as the strongest parts of the book. They aren’t particularly standout, but they’re clear and descriptive and somewhat interesting, especially when she details the wealthy class’s secrets. I think if they had just been turned into a semi-autobiographical academia novel about a wide-eyed middle class girl who slips through the closed doors of the elite via Cambridge admission, that would have made for a readable book.

[EDIT: I only just noticed the note about the typeface after the exceedingly long Acknowledgements section because this book is so full of blank pages. I didn’t keep flipping through the dozen or so blank pages after the Acknowledgements. The excess blank pages are one of the worst parts of the book (apparently done to make all eventual books the author intends to write the same length) but the typeface note was easily the best part of the book.]

The majority of the book, however, is a mess of nonsense prose and occasional stuff that is just gross. The prose reads like she’s *trying* to sound a bit unhinged, wielding a thesaurus with all the delicacy of a crowbar, and the gross stuff ranges from body horror (in-depth descriptions of a real person’s rotting corpse) to a manipulative obsession with a named, rival writer—to whom this book probably should have been dedicated (instead of Lena Dunham of all people) since it was written as an attempt to hurt that writer with detailed murder/rape fantasies and to take attention away from that writer’s first book, bashing readers over the head with the vengeful, repeated cry “I’m the better writer! Please tell me you agree!” As I live-posted my way through reading this, I had a few people DM me and say they wish they hadn’t read this book, so I guess that’s my warning? I don’t think I regret reading, even if I feel like the execution here was mostly artless and occasionally hurtful (like her characterizations of sex workers as intellectually inferior to her and men with working-class “porn jobs” as wholly illiterate). But I did it, and I wrote this review so you don’t have to read it, and so you don’t have to feel insane when you see Rolling Stone call it a masterpiece! It is not.

[Winnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The best part about having read Scammer is that I'll never have to read another word of Scammer.


With some of the positive press it got I was expecting something at least... good? Or maybe even alright??? But this book is *by far* the worst thing I've ever read. Save your eyeballs and read the back of a shampoo bottle instead.

[Haley]

I need this on Libby ASAP

[katie g · Rating 1 out of 5]

girl don’t even ask

[Sarah Fowerbaugh · Rating 1 out of 5]

EDIT: Wow, the book price has been raised to $65 not including shipping, so I’m priced out of this book.

However, having read most of the author’s online publications so far, I’m going to leave my review and rating as is. I’ve had a look through online reviews and it does appear that whole chapters of the book are entirely recycled content, so I’m confident that I’ve read enough of this to retain my original review.

Until I can find a more affordable copy and read more for myself, my original review is as follows:

You can read an excerpt for a donation to charity on iamcarolinecalloway.com, though I doubt this book will ever actually be self-published at this point! (If it does, I'll update my review.) But if the excerpt reveals anything about the book, it's that it's confusing and choppy, filled with grammatical errors and misspellings, as well as overly gratuitous adjectives and metaphors. She rips her entire voice from other popular memoirists; I'd just finished Cat Marnell's How To Murder Your Life and the tone and exclamations in the excerpt were hollow echoes of Marnell. Skip this one, it won't add anything to the current conversation around this particular influencer.

[Jord · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's better than you all want it to be.

[Eve · Rating 2 out of 5]

the earnest ‘by’ on the cover had me in a fit of giggles, school project vibes.

this memoir feels like an exercise in getting blood from a stone, on the part of the author and reader - it is plain masochistic all round.

I’ve been following CC for years so all the content in here feels recycled, but two stars for her sheer force of will in trying to make any of this interesting and just because I’m so lost in the CC sauce at this point.

no matter how many memoirs she plans to write I’m certain that Caroline will remain an enigma - and maybe it’s better that way.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was supposed to come out in “spring 2020.” It’s August now and still no Scammer or any concrete dates for an actual release. I don’t think this book is ever coming out, read something else. Anything else.

[S · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t know why this book has glowing reviews in the press. Clearly a sign of brain-rot from “journalists” who write for access and clicks. But there is not a single redeeming quality in this “book” and the “writing” is largely nonsensical.

[Girl · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's poorly written/cringe 2 stars for the tea though

[siya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Best part of reading this book was finishing.

[Courtney (cbbookss) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Years later, when I finally got on the anti-depressants I should have been taking this entire time instead of self-medicating a death-wish with study-drugs, I got super into perfumes. Bought, like, 200 bottles. It's not that I couldn't smell before, I just didn't get any joy from scents, tastes, the sound of rain. Views. And so, I write for the girls who want fun above all else precisely because once they finally get it these girls can barely feel it. I write for the girl I once was.”

As a general rule, I do not rate memoirs. I never have and thought I never would.

However! This is such an interesting exception - partially because Caroline has been very open about living her life with the intention of writing a memoir about it - and partially because I’m pissed off that so many people rated this so low. Did we even read the same book? Scammer is a masterpiece, plain and simple. I think a lot of people have already made up their minds about Caroline, and so feel justified in their vitriol. I’m not here to weigh in on who is right and who is wrong, but a good book deserves its recognition.

This memoir tells the story of many things: a rebuttal to betrayal, a lavish life of partying, a queer coming of age story, of mental health and addiction struggles, a businesswoman’s ambition, and so on. Told in vignettes, this memoir was made to be devoured. It is absolutely, unironically profound. I got whiplash, the way it sent me through the full range of emotions in such a short span of time.

I had never heard of Caroline Calloway until she offered to send me her book. Maybe offered is the wrong word. She said: “I would love to send you my book! What’s your address?” Like it wasn’t even a question I’d say yes. Obviously I did, but I loved the confidence.

Anyway, I went into this with no preconceptions about anything and it probably made for a better experience. I don’t care if not a single word of this is the truth; Caroline’s narrative voice is nothing short of captivating. At once scattered and chaotic, as well as confronting and melodic - prose that will knock the wind out of you from one sentence to the next, she never shied away from gritty or offensive details.

This luxury first edition copy has hand-glued end pages. This, combined with the “by Caroline Calloway” on the cover and the use of exclamation points, there was clearly so much love and passion that went into this book. It’s tangible. I can’t believe this is a person’s life. I hope she gets an orgasm next.

[Erica Scoville · Rating 5 out of 5]

i aspire to live in as much delusion as my Queen CC does 💐🌷🌺🪻🌻🌸🌼

[Hay · Rating 1 out of 5]

[UPDATED REVIEW 7/30/23]:

I typed a proper, thorough review of this (on my phone, regrettably) and Goodreads went LOL NOPE and with a swipe that's all fucking gone.

TL;DR (because I'm not going to write it all out again): Don't pay $65 for this. Pirate it if you're intrigued.

And if you're ever worried if you're not "qualified" or good enough to write on your own because you didn't go to NYU/Cambridge/etc.: don't be.

These bozos - yes, I mean Caroline AND Natalie Beach - just had money and audacity to get their publications going so do your thing.

In the meantime, I'll keep watching the mess from the sidelines.

[ORIGINAL REVIEW 5/11/23]:

I've read the excerpt of "I Am Caroline Calloway" on her site that's meant for this book, I've read the Instagram captions that are meant to be part of this book, and I've read her shared book proposal and I've gotta say, this is a hot mess and a half.

Looking back and seeing that this was originally supposed to be released in Spring/Summer 2020 and here we are in 2023...Caroline is WILD.

If she magically releases the book in full despite all of her drama (trust me she's worth a deep dive into Google/Reddit), then I'll update my review but I'll be honest, I wanted to hop on the review train and give the update that in May 2023 there is still no "Scammer".

[Shea · Rating 1 out of 5]

After following her on Instagram since 2014… I’ve practically read this entire book

[Bryndis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Entertaining in parts but far from good and more than anything an advert as to why even good writers need an editor and bad ones even more so.

[Emma Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars? I know, I know.

This book is a fever dream that only Caroline Calloway could write. She is privileged, unlikable, and a liar. She lies to you in the book and then admits that she lied to you and then proceeds to tell you about feats of audacity so ridiculous they can’t possibly be true but must be, because who could make that up? Like, did you know Caroline forged her transcripts to get into Cambridge? She literally straight-up photoshopped them.

And yet: I know this is probably a buck-wild claim to make, but Scammer is actually a pretty good book. The caveat is that it definitely needed an editor, and also a proofreader. Some sections are better than others, and there are more than a few passages where Calloway gets in her own way. She’s too busy telling you about what she’s doing as a writer to just … do it. It’s like she’s going for the memoirist’s version of a Penn and Teller trick, telling you about her literary tool kit while dazzling you with it—but she doesn’t pull it off. Instead, when she gets out of her own way and just writes, just lets the words on the page speak for themselves, that’s when her skill shines through. She has an ear for a vivid turn of phrase, and the most memorable parts of the book are the sections where she’s finally being honest with herself.

So, should you pay $65 for Scammer? No. No, you should not. Again, the book needed an editor. However, if you see a copy of Scammer in your local library or find it used for a few bucks, should you pick it up? Yes. Caroline Calloway is privileged, unlikeable, and a liar—but she’s also fascinating.

Thank you to the author for providing a copy of the book for review.

[Fredrik deBoer · Rating 1 out of 5]

1. The actual text here is exceedingly tiresome, a list of little internet-poetry aphorisms that connect to nothing else in the text and clearly were written independently. That feeling haunts the entire book, the feeling that a series of quirky/deep observations about Millennial life (Calloway is a Millennial) were written, then a book was built out around those observations. Aphorism is a great artform and can contain great wisdom, but if you just want to write the little ditties and not a real book then write something like the Pensées and be done with it. As it stands much of what's written here is clearly bored with itself even before it reaches a couple hundred words.

2. I am baffled by the number of people who are sure that Calloway wrote all of this. This is a woman who paid someone else to write captions for her Instagram photos. And yet so many of the reviews of this text took it as given that Calloway had written the book. But... why? We have every reason to believe that she's fobbed this off to some desperate ghostwriter. I have no reason to believe this is her work, and she's never demonstrated the ability to write anything of substance at all, beyond forging a transcript. Very strange, how many people are just buying the company line.

3. If you shtick is to be provocative, eventually you have to actually provoke.

[Lora · Rating 4 out of 5]

The polarizing reviews show the effect Caroline Calloway has on people. Love her or hate her—she knows how to be talked about. The prose could have been sharper in some places, but I appreciated the insight Caroline gives on her life, failures, and changes. She certainly is a smart, talented business person who knows how to create publicity—and more than that, she’s a good writer.

[leah]

will post a review soon!

[Kassie Parisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t care what anyone says about this book, or if they think it’s bad. They’re wrong- it’s good! Caroline genuinely has an artistically important and unique way of internalizing the world around her. The romanticism mixed with delusion is something I relate to but we see sadly little of in literature.

Scammer does come with a few fine print points that I think will keep the random reader from getting the most possible value out of it. Here they are:

One- Scammer works best for those who are familiar with Caroline lore. I’ve been a consumer of hers for a long time and when I excitedly unwrapped this gift I received from a fellow-CC watcher in a roomful of non CC followers, they were like “oh! What’s that!”. I use Caroline familiarity as a way to gauge what corner of the Internet someone lives in as well as their internal headspace…providing even a basic crash course would have been time wasted. But if you know her, you’ll know Scammer, and it’ll succeed.

Two- As noted before, the understanding of surroundings via romantic delusion is I think (somewhat due to elitism and mostly due to misogyny) not most peoples’ cup of tea. Sad Girls is its own maligned genre of media, one that seems to be derided as trite and idiotic. If work about reveling in and fixating on death and dying and pain points despite going to therapy is something you find eye-rolling, this probably isn’t for you.

Anyway, a strange and compelling work of theater! I’ll get her other books, if she ever ends up writing them.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

can't believe i spent $25 on this two years ago and when i finally got it, i hated it!

for those who are well versed in the CC universe, there is very little new material here. in fact, any new material is mainly comments about how someday she'll write about something new in her next book. probably 15% of this book was promotion for the next one. it drove me crazy!

she also spends a good amount of time claiming that natalie is obsessed with her and the only way she'll ever succeed is off her coattails, but then she just spends page after page after page obsessing over natalie. and some of this makes sense, when she's in the past where they were writing the book proposal together or sitting in class, but when she's writing about the present it's just uncomfortable. and i'm sorry, saying that she hooked up with a pudgy guy who looked exactly like natalie now? because she has a cute little potbelly and a pixie cut? come on.

i can't imagine what all the positive reviewers who CC has been blasting on her ig even saw in this book. beautifully written? tipping over into brilliance?? did we read the same book???

[Sarah Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

At some point in Scammer, Caroline Calloway (CC) writes that she now realizes her lifelong dream of being a famous memoirist is a flawed one, because we want our famous people to be role models and we want our memoirists to be honest.

CC’s writing in Scammer is honest, beautifully so—and also upsettingly so in parts. By writing so rawly, she reveals past thoughts and experiences that often leave the reader disliking CC the Character while admiring the authenticity of CC the Writer. I walked away admiring the author’s storytelling and linguistic prowess while simultaneously feeling discomfort with some of what she chose to share. To me, that’s the mark of a powerful memoir.

The vignette format of Scammer suits CC’s style perfectly, and I look forward to reading more from her.

[belle · Rating 3 out of 5]

an interesting one for sure with So much lore and such an unreliable narrator. i didn’t believe a word she said but i also see her truth in everything. half felt like a memoir and also like an advertisement for cc’s future books.

[Lucy Hodgman · Rating 2 out of 5]

this made me go back to being team natalie

[Cameron Andersen · Rating 2 out of 5]

this has some truly gorgeous moments and images and yet… this isn’t a book, this is a defense.


she charged $65 for this and said she feels good about that!! cut the dimes square chapters, that shit sucks!! caroline calloway u will always be annoying!!

[Bean · Rating 4 out of 5]

caroline calloway writing scammer kind of feels like a line cook coming home after a shift and making a grilled cheese - the form and scale is (intentionally?) sloppy in a way that stands as a litmus test for what they can actually do in future. Above all this felt like it was very easy for her to write, which is the best lie to be led to believe about a book, and which I thank god for, because what is worse than reading something alright that you can tell someone has really sweat over? I’m sure writing well and being an interpersonal nightmare both come as second nature, like so many authors

[rory · Rating 2 out of 5]

i went into this expecting a book that was both bad and entertaining, and i was not disappointed! however, from the first page i was overwhelmed the excessive metaphors and flowery language that overwhelm any intended meaning. the heart of the story is bogged down with calloway's attempt to be seen as a deep, serious writer. i often had to reread sentences multiple times simply because of how many unnecessary and confusing adjectives she uses. this reads as a book by someone who desperately wants to be seen as talented; wants to be revered. but i would have respected this more if calloway instead just tried to be herself.

there were a few parts that caught me emotionally, but i'm unsure whether that was due to her writing, or due to me being emotionally impacted by most media about s*icide and familial loss.

the underlying issue with this "daybook" as calloway calls it is that it reeks of untruthfulness. you can tell she isn't being honest. so many details in here read as obvious lies, intended to get back at her friend-turned-enemy natalie beach. she seems more angry with beach and more intent on being a better writer than her than she seems to care about actually writing a good book. calloway just doesn't seem to be mature enough or done enough self reflection to write a memoir that is genuine or compelling.

I think the paragraphs about beach's assault in here were intended to harm beach in a way that left me feeling a bit sickly. i also was jump scared by the detail she goes into about her father's death, but that might also just be a personal issue.

overall, i was entertained but there are good and entertaining books i could have spent my time reading instead of this.

[Allie Iacovelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The people giving Scammer bad reviews are so funny to me!! Like what else did you expect! It is exactly as silly and chaotic and messy and delightful as everything else Caroline Calloway has ever written. Sure, sometimes the prose was whimsical to the point of excess, but it was overall a romp - as much as a book dealing with addiction and mental health can be

[Gabbie Pop]

this was high camp, actually