The is a compelling read and the story of a brave prosecutor, Maggie Krell, who made it her mission to take down Backpage. The subtitle of the book is "Fighting the world;s largest sex trafficker" and that's exactly what Ms. Krell did. A lot of people don't realize that pedophiles found their targets on Backpage and the publication was seemingly immune to prosecution. They believed no one could touch them but they weren't ready for the tenacity, fearlessness and amazing legal talents of Ms. Krell. An excellent read.

An interesting read from those responsible for taking down the sex trafficking rings hidden in plain sight on Backpage. Having attended conferences with speakers involved in the investigation, this book went into more detail than most would expect. An eye opener for sure.

Thank You to NYU Press and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very interesting book on the people involved in stopping the Backpage website and their illegal trade in sex trafficking. It also shows the emotional effects on these young girls and how they were forced into the sex trade, Girls who were already traumatized and were too young to know how or where to get help. How victims were being prosecuted instead of given psychological help and a support system to change your lives for the better.

Maggy Krell is a hero, and I mean that wholeheartedly. This book was gut-wrenching and heartbreaking and inspiring all at once.

However, I do think Maggy Krell could have used a cowriter or ghost writer on this. She has a fascinating story, but the way it was told felt rather dry to me and made the book move quite slowly.

This book was just superb! So interesting, it flowed like a true crime novel. If you start it, you won't be able to put it down.

While I found the content interesting, I did not enjoy the author’s decision to insert herself into the story. I find it incredibly distracting when most authors choose to present their narrative that way, but at times it made this book almost unreadable.

This is an interesting and timely story, told from one prosecutor's perspective. I think it might have been even better to get a co-author who could shed more light on the development of the site and/or the federal case. Or an editor to cut some of the details about clothing and hairstyles and other minutia the author notices. But Maggy Krell's story of taking a stand in the fight against human trafficking is inspiring, and I hope it encourages others to take similar actions against traffickers. I also wish her every success in her new role as Chief Legal Counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. Bans off our bodies!

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

It is hard to give a rating to a book that is based on such horrific crimes. The author, Maggy Krell, is a veteran California prosecutor who wanted to work on stopping human trafficking. Her main target was Backpage.com - a website that claims it was selling goods/services and was all above board. Once they started delving into information, it was anything but above board. This book follows the years and hard work it took to bring down this website and hold the owners accountable for their participation in illegal activity.

I want to start of by saying, wow! I could not do what Maggy does! It was an interesting read, however, it does move extremely quickly. This doesn’t allow you to become overly attached to the characters.

This is more like a school essay, than that of a novel. I didn't enjoy it, but I don't enjoy nonfiction unless it's told like a story... memoirs, for example. Still, thank you Netgalley for giving me the advanced pdf so that I can share my thoughts and opinions with y'all 🧡

I'll rate 5 stars for research and effort, but 2 stars on delivery, averaging at 3.5 stars I guess 👍

While human trafficking is a fairly commonly known term, I can comfortably say I have never heard of Backpage. This is a comprehensive story from the DOJ prosecutor who’s case toppled the seedy, Craigslist style website that openly allowed sexually exploited children to be marketed online. As despicable as that is, cases like this are hard to prosecute because of the loopholes afford to website providers related to content. There are aspects of this that are really interesting to know, especially since I am not a lawyer and don’t know a lot about such proceedings, but there was also a bit of a bog down for me in the day to day grind of explaining the process of investigating and prosecuting a case. Overall, this is worth reading. Review posted to Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Litsy, and LibraryThing.

An important point in human rights history and something worth keeping on the shelf as a reminder for the ways cruel individuals can manipulate the current technologies to continue causing harm to others.

This book sounded really interesting. I wanted to learn more about the sex trafficking business. It turns out, I didn't know as much as I thought I did. There were aspects to it that I didn't even consider. I found this and the trial to be interesting. However, I found the writing style to be dry and hard to get past. I struggled to stay interested in the book due to the writing style. It felt more like I was reading the transcript of a case as opposed to a book. I appreciate more of a memoir writing style where it is less about the actions and what happens and more about the feelings associated. I feel like this book was lacking in the feelings. It told me everything that happened, but it felt like the writer was an outsider looking in as opposed to the one taking down Backpage.
Thanks to Net Galley for a gifted e-copy of the book.

This book was informational and I love that this author did what she did. It shows that one person can change big corporations and change lives After reading other reviews there is a lot that I missed and didn't think about but in general I found it informational and inspiring.

Taking Down Backpage offers the insider account of an unstoppable prosecutor's effort to destroy the world's biggest marketplace for underage rape. I was not familiar with this story and I was shocked that such a website could exist in the open for so long.

I thought this book was a solid read with a lot of interesting information about Backpackge and some really heartwrenching stories about the people who experience sex trafficking. I did wish I got a bit closer to Maggy's emotional state about the whole thing. This is published by a University press, so I understand why she was focusing more on the legal aspects, but it did make me wonder more about how she felt on a deeper level. Overall, though, a really informative read about a dark element of true crime.

This book deals with the story of a state prosecutor and her determined efforts to take down the Backpage website and prosecute those involved in the vile sex trafficking that it helped to support. Despite it being generally regarded as having been the worlds biggest sex trafficking operation at the time, before reading this I had never heard of 'Backpage'. This book certainly informs the reader of the many 'hoops' that had to be jumped through before Backpage was finally removed. Krell started off small by prosecuting the street pimps but through the hard work and constant intervention of her team they managed to close down the 'Backpage' operation and prosecute its founders and CEO with sex trafficking.
The trouble with the book for me was that despite its compelling subject matter the writing was very heavy on the legal side and this tended to make some parts of the book rather dry. However, it is a hugely important story that needs to be read and I just hope that by more people knowing this story that some of the legal hoops and obstacles that Maggie and her team faced will be removed just like the ones that aided and abetted the site have been.

This book covers very important subject matter - human trafficking - and centers on (as the title states) the taking down of Backpage. I appreciated the way the author combined what could be a legal thriller with a true crime novel. What Maggy Krell was able to accomplish was nothing short of amazing!

2.5 stars

Taking Down Backpage is a straight-forward, factual account of the California Department of Justice’s, specifically Maggy Krell’s, efforts to take down Backpage and charge its founders and CEO with sex trafficking. The book covers an important part of the battle against domestic minor sex trafficking.

The story Maggy Krell tells in Taking Down Backpage is rather simple and barebones. Written in a very elementary, factual manner, I was never fully immersed in the story or connected to the characters. While it is clear that the colleagues she featured are smart and hard-working, you never come to really know them. The same is true of Maggy. When survivor’s stories are told, it is done so with emotional distance. I also thought that Krell failed to provide much context or include the backlash and resistance to taking down Backpage. Without these aspects of the story, Taking Down Backpage fails to have a strong narrative and connect with readers.

Where Taking Down Backpage fell short for me was the writing. I understand that Krell is an attorney, but I have never read anything written by an attorney that is this succinct. While I was happy that she did not write long, meandering sentences that are typical of a lot of lawyers, Krell’s writing lacked detail and failed to be compelling. Krell’s passion even fails to come through her writing. This relatively short book need to be beefed up.

Krell did do a pretty good job explaining the procedures of the (in)justice system for a lay person. For me, it was a bit too basic and therefore annoyed me at times; however, I realize that I am not the typical reader.

Overall, I found Taking Down Backpage to be somewhere between okay and enjoyable. I wanted to love Taking Down Backpage due to its subject matter and its importance, but it did not quite work for me. The story and writing needed work prior to publishing. However, I would recommend it to those interested in the subject and do not mind very factual writing.

This book is extremely well-written and was difficult to put down! Maggy Krell gives a first-hand account of her work as a part of a team to prosecute the owners of Backpage - a marketplace for sex-trafficking. It reads like a mystery or crime-caper and the key is she finds that "we need to follow the money" to get to the source on who "owned" or "benefited" from the prostitution ring. The heart of the challenge she and her team faces is that law enforcement often treats sex-trafficking victims as criminals - and the FBI tended to lack enthusiasm and support for this case. What really disturbed me is that traffickers often used Juvenile Hall to recruit these victims. Her book explains the court proceedings really well for non-lawyers like me and when she found out that the CDA act blocked the ability to prosecute she was able to shift the focus to money laundering! We hear stories of victims in this book which brings a critical personalized lens to this book. This was a quick read and well worth it!