A review by mandyherbet
The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception by Robin Gaby Fisher
3.0
Tania Head was the 'ubersurvivor' when it came to 9/11 - she repeatedly told of how she'd survived in the South Tower while her fiance/husband had perished in the North Tower. Her story overshadowed her fellow survivors but alas, it was exposed as fake and she went into hiding. This is the story of how she fooled her friends and fellow survivors but it reads like a novel - told from her perspective as if it were all true.
I found this narrative style very disconcerting because I was expecting a truer non-fiction style of book. Knowing that her story was fake, I had trouble reading about how she survived as if it really happened. I think it would have been a better book had the author set out from the beginning that Tania was a fraud, instead of only exposing that at the end. While the story is told chronologically, I don't think the linear structure works.
I found this narrative style very disconcerting because I was expecting a truer non-fiction style of book. Knowing that her story was fake, I had trouble reading about how she survived as if it really happened. I think it would have been a better book had the author set out from the beginning that Tania was a fraud, instead of only exposing that at the end. While the story is told chronologically, I don't think the linear structure works.