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Excerpt pages 77-78 : "So many young women, myself included, have been criticized for returning to Epstein's lair even after we knew what he wanted from us. How can you complain about being abused, some have asked, when you could so easily have stayed away? If you didn't like feeling dirty, you could simply have never gone back.
But that stance wrongly discounts what many of us had been through before we encountered Epstein, as well as how good he was at spotting girl's whose wounds made them vulnerable to him. Several of us had been molested or raped as children; many of us were poor or even homeless. Before meeting Epstein, one of his victims had watched her father beat an eight-year-old boy to death; another was present when her boyfriend killed himself. We were girls who no on cared about, and Epstein pretended to care. At times I think he even believed he cared. A master manipulator who excelled at divining the desires of others, he threw what looked like a lifeline to girls who were drowning, girls who had nothing, girls who wished to be and do better. If they wanted to be dancers, he offered dance lessons. If they aspired to be actors, he said he'd help them get roles. If they said the only thing they yearned to do was paint, he bought them canvases and introduced them to key people in the art world. And then he did his worst to them."