Monday, June 24, 2024

Review: Gone Catfishing by JR Hopkins


 

Genre: Non-Fiction/Self-Help

Description:

Have you ever been sent a message on any dating or social media site by someone wanting you to be friends with him or her? Someone who pretended to be romantically interested in you but used a fake profile, and not who you thought they were, to lure you in and then it turned into a scam...usually for money. If you have, then you've been 'Catfished'. The was written to let people know of the different ways these scammers try to get money out of you.

Author:

Born in Durant, Oklahoma, JR Hopkins describes herself as a “displaced Okie with a bit of Choctaw blood.” A bit of a nomad her place of residence has bounced around a bit, with stints in states as varied as Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, and Connecticut as well as internationally, living for a time in Iceland. She currently lives in Idaho and is the author of several books that range from romance, to memoir, and even one that while primarily a cookbook has a little memoir thrown in as well. That’s a mashup you don’t see very often.

Appraisal:

Maybe it is because I don’t patronize websites or use apps like Tinder that are specifically aimed at helping to hook two willing people up, but I’ve been lucky enough not to have become a target of one of these catfishing schemes. It seems as though women being targeted by men happens more frequently and targeting people on social media sites that I do frequent isn’t as common, although it does happen. Reading this to familiarize myself with examples of these schemes will hopefully prepare me in case I ever do become a target or if it happens to friends or family, it might help me recognize what is happening.

Odds are none of the above will happen to me. That’s good. I’d rather not need the knowledge I gained from reading this book. Despite being true and my assumption that everything would work out in the end I still found it entertaining, with some of the qualities of a thriller or mystery, as I wondered what the catfishers were going to do next and hoped the author was going to see and deal appropriately with all the potential repercussions. So, it was a fun and engaging read as well as educational.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

My review is based on an advance reviewer copy so I can’t judge the final product in this area.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 30-35,000 words

No comments: