I had to order my copy and it got delayed because of the snow storm, so I didn't get it until last week. I finished it a few days ago and was really impressed. I found myself feeling really bad for Franciska; if my life was that horrible I'd probably want to pretend to be someone else too.
Everyone has at some point in their life found themselves in a series of lies that spiraled out of control, and you get paranoid about getting found out and feel sick and uneasy until it's all smoothed over. Well, for Franciska it turned into her whole life. The book made it seem like she never had any intention of it getting as big as it did or lasting for the rest of her life.
I did not have much sympathy for Harriet Rathlef-Keilmann and the like. This book did make me more willing to believe Gleb Botkin wasn't in on it, but surely some of her other supporters (like the aforementioned Rathlef-Keilmann) had to have figured out she wasn't actually Anastasia or at least realized the good chance that she might not be. Yet they continued to lie and cause problems for Anastasia's family because they didn't "recognize" her. On her own I don't think Franciska would have stirred up so much unpleasantness. It wasn't in her best interest to get anyone's family involved. For her supporters, they had very little to lose and all the more to gain by going for high profile recognitions. But for Franciska she was constantly at risk for being arrested, or for the time the Nazis were in power, killed. I can only imagine how terrified she was when she encountered people who knew her in her former life. To me it demonstrates some level of acting ability that she didn't completely break down out of fear. Being caught in a lie, or even almost caught, is a really unpleasant experience. The bigger the lie, the worse it feels. When Doris Wingender greeted her after all those years, she probably had to keep herself from passing out.
As wrong as what she did was, I feel like she probably got punished enough in the hell of her own making. Even after she knew she wouldn't get caught, and had stopped caring whether people believed her, I don't think she was every really comfortable as Anastasia.