[1] Akbari grew up in Iowa and studied theater at a performing arts boarding school in Michigan.
[7] In her book Startup Your Life, as Akbari explained in Time, she outlined relationship hacks, including networking in-person, building emotional intelligence, and finding your "minimum viable product" by understanding your core values.
[8] Publishers Weekly noted that Akbari's entrepreneurial approach was sound, if sometimes more applicable to business situations than to personal challenges such as healthy eating.
[5] The New York Times reviewer Katie J. M. Baker described There is No Ethan as a riveting piece of investigative journalism billed as a memoir, noting that Akbari begins to explore ethical questions regarding aspirational identity and the power of physicians in the epilogue, and concluding that the book is "a valiant attempt to hold a manipulator accountable".
[5] The gender-bending aspect of the catfishing led Bustle reviewer Arianna Rebolini to recommend it for Pride Month: "this memoir is not LGBTQ but I simply had to mention it".