Partly because Buschheuer was subsequently a witness to the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and her online journal from that time was widely read and appreciated as good reporting, some, particularly in academia, have subsequently argued that the book was not taken seriously enough. In 2004, Kristie Foell judged it an up-to-date and recognizable critique of "degradation through Westernization". In 2007, it was the subject of a doctoral dissertation by Oliver Benjamin Ham in which he argued that it presents the "gendered body" of the protagonist as "the main mediator and battle field of the divisions and tensions in Berlin between East and West Germans". In 2010, Tabea Dörfelt-Mathey saw it as an incisive portrait of the 1990s, built up out of details and lists in a manner reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho", with a protagonist who problematizes the female role: she acts like a man until in playing the part of Eugénie to "Valmont", she becomes weak. Dörfelt-Mathey saw the widespread negative reviews as responses to preconceived notions of what women should write.