The book reminded me of the song “glimpse of us” by Joji but in the female version!

“I stalk a woman on the internet who is sleeping with the same man as I am” - after reading this line, I knew this is going to be a perfect summer read!

Read the book -

✅I'm a Fan is a smart novel on obsession and privilege!
✅In this gripping debut, Sheena Patel kept my interest until the last page.
✅I loved her writing pattern.
✅Genre - Literary Fiction

I read two books on female obsession this year! Are you planning to read this book?

What to say about this one? I kind of hated this book. At the same time I finished it. I am someone who will happily dnf a book if I'm not into it, so on some level I guess I was. There was something compelling about the book even though all the characters were at best dull and at worst detestable. I think I was waiting for something interesting to happen, and Patel is a strong writer so the prose gave me the feeling that something would. Spoiler alert, it does not. Now I am not the target audience for this book. I am too old to care about social media in the way the narrator does. I am too old to have the insecurities that the narrator does. It may well be something younger people are more able to connect to. I guess I liked the writing style, but overall this was a huge miss for me.

I was not a fan of this book. Unfortunately I want able to finish it. It wasn’t able to hold my attention

I’m a Fan

I’m a fan is an interesting story about a woman who is having an affair with a man that is not hers. She is in love with a man who she can’t fully have, as he is committed and married to someone else, who she also happens to be obsessed with. She takes to stalking her on social media and is consumed with finding out information about her and her life. This story is written like a diary entry and is told through the thoughts and perspective of the main character as it follows her inner dialogue as she navigates the complexities of her life, career, romance and her overall her wants and desires. This book highlights the use of social media and how people can get obsessed and consumed with their followers, and social media influencers. I don’t think people stop and think about how much time we spend watching our friends post and keeping up with their lives via an app and screen, but this story really brings attention to this lifestyle, and I think the author did a great job with this. However overall, I found the story to be too hard to follow and requiring more cohesiveness. The inner dialogue was a unique and thought-out writing style to portray this story, however it didn’t make the story and reading experience overall positive for me.

This novel starts as a seemingly straightforward tale of infidelity. However, it soon becomes apparent the anonymous narrator’s obsession with the married man she is sleeping with and one of his other lovers, is leading to questionable decisions and actions.

I found this to be a disjointed read, likely because the novel is written as a series of journal entries. I was also uncomfortable with the narrator’s viewpoint and actions. I found her anger and lack of insight simultaneously breathtaking and heartbreaking. She recognized the dysfunction in her relationship yet could not see how her own dysfunction prevented her from moving forward. This novel may appeal to readers who appreciate the complexity of human relationships and interactions.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy of this novel for review.

This book was not at all what I expected. On the one hand, the writing was almost meditative and in a weird way sounded very poetic although it is not necessarily written in verse.

There isn't really a plot but I felt the spirit of Bridget Jones and Maame in some of the parts that centered around love and relationships. The way the author writes about culture, racism, misogyny and white supremacy is incredibly powerful and made me wish I had a paper copy to highlight.

This isn't normally the type of book I would read, but once I accepted the format, I found it really well done.

Sheena Patel's I'm a Fan follows an unnamed protagonist stuck in a toxic situationship where the guy she wants to be with is also attached to several other women (including a wife). Written in short vignettes, Patel does a great job at breaking down a spiralling, obsessive mindset which exposes the dark side of social media we hear so much about in studies yet see so little of in fiction.

Although it is already on the short side (with it's 216 pages), some parts of the story felt repetitive, such as her rants on the woman that she is obsessed with's upbringing and her "authentic" lifestyle. It could have benefitted from a cut or two there.

On the other hand, while I know the story must end somewhere, I wished some loose ends could have been tied up. The ending reflects well the messiness of affairs and toxic relationship dynamics but leaves much to be desired. I've only just finished the novel, yet I know I will be thinking about I'm a Fan for a long time.
Pick up this book if you like a quick pace, a realist setting, rants on everything wrong with today's society, and are looking for a story deeply anchored in the now.

Thank you, Sheena Patel, Penguin Random House Canada, and Netgalley for the ARC.

When I first picked it up, I was so excited to read this. Then it just started slipping away from me. I think the repetitive style would be great for some people but it just made me a little bored. Her love interest has a ton of red flags but I liked how the author depicted her struggle with wanting him and knowing it was a bad idea.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rough Trade Books for this ARC in exchange for a fair review.

3.5 Stars

I was drawn to this book initially because it sounded really interesting and it’s Canadian book. It’s not what I was expecting at all but I did enjoy it. I received this eBook free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I don’t know how to describe this book because I thought from the synopsis it was going to be more of a literal autobiography, it was but it was told in such a unique voice. I would recommend this to others.

I'M A FAN but Sheena Patel is a first-person narrative of a young brown woman as she navigates relationships and power. It slips into almost academic, cultural studies-type analysis of social media, influencers, privilege, misogyny and more, but for me didn't hold together. It has echoes of the brilliant LUSTER by Raven Leilani, but not the execution.

"I stalk a woman on the internet who is sleeping with the same man as I am."

A successful businessman, a prospering influencer and our unnamed narrator.
It's hard to describe this book. It's hard to explain what it's about. I think if I tried I would butcher the concept, deterring others from reading it.

It is a voyeuristic, almost creepy look into these people's lives.
Our narrator comes off as determined and at times unhinged.
The writing was poetic, choppy and beautiful and I was shocked to find out it was a debut.

The kind of book I would hold out to a friend and say
"don't ask me what its about, just read it"

Unique diary/blog narrative style is fresh and intriguing. Themes of race, sex, class, and power are explored in a way that is very personal to the narrator/main character, yet resonates for the reader.

I found it hard to move with the narrator at times though - the whining, rambling, victimhood, and emotionally-fueled poor decision-making got a bit much. I got stuck on how crazy she was making me and lost the thread on larger themes. This may be why the ending also lost me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This book is about a woman who is obsessed with "the man she wants to be with" and also obsessed with the other woman he is sleeping with, and she is pretty much a stalker.

The narrative is all out of order, and she just goes on about the stuff she does to get information about anyone who might be able to give her a clue about the people she's obsessed with. She's making crappy choices and goes on jargony rants about racial inequality and politics and it's really hard to like her. I only finished this because I was driving for several hours and it wasn't unpleasant to listen to the voice of the narrator drone on. I think the author actually narrated this, so if you are going to read this I recommend listening to the audiobook.

There was no conclusion.

This book was a bit of a slog for me. I expected to enjoy it but I just couldn't get into it and ended up abandoning it partway through.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I did not finish this one, it was not for me, I couldn't relate to the characters, and just did not care for the story.

a story of obsessiveness - not only about the desire to acquire and keep love that is withholding and manipulative but of the scale that our social media and influencer culture has made spectators and ‘fans’ out of us, all over things that wouldn’t have interested us in the first place. While the main character is a little crazy, she’s not completely unhinged I would say as the many of women in books that this would be collected with. She’s made a hero and a villain out of the woman she is obsessed with and her lover, finding value in their objective affirmations of things and believing that it all applies to her because that’s what they’ve made it out to be. Social media culture is so toxic and demanding of your every thought and feeling that you can’t help becoming a fan of the idea of the person they all want you to see and want you to be.

Wow. This book felt ... chaotic at times from someone who is use to a very linear story line.
The plot is not really about a man she wants to be with. It dives a lot deeper into racial, socio-economical, relationships, and social media, just to name a few.
It follows our main character as she navigates an unbalanced relationship with a married man. She stalks the other woman who is also seeing the married man and makes many comparisons of the woman's life to her own. These comparisons bring out the differences between race and white privilege. These comparisons drive home that we still have a lot to do to level the playing field.
3 stars as at times I found it hard to follow. Chapters at times had nothing to do with the chapters before or after it and it was not always chronological. I can respect this type of storytelling, however, it was just not for me.
I also found it difficult to read at times as the main character continued to put herself in an unhealthy relationship and didn't seem to learn and grow from her interactions. I would expect this from a protagonist in their 20s, but we are to assume she is in her 30s and should be at a point were decisions should reflect more of her best interest.
Overall, I did enjoy this read. I would recommend with the caveat that it is not your normal storyline.

*3.5 stars*

So intrigued…

I read the blurb for this book and instantly thought to myself – how could anyone like this main character? She cheated on her boyfriend, stalked and obsessed over her lover’s lover. It sounded like a whole lot of wrong going on but I couldn’t help but snap the book up and dive in…

I started reading. And couldn’t stop. There was so much I kept nodding my head to. Shaking my head. And thinking that so much of what she said was true. I didn’t have to approve of (or like) her life choices – really, it’s none of my business (only hers and her boyfriend’s) – to appreciate the many thoughts and opinions she had about the world around her. And what the world around her made her. Her stalker-ish level of interest highlighted the current obsession with celebrity and ‘influencing’ in an entertaining and really honest way.

By the end of the book, I was a solid fan of this author and appreciated the humour and the message even if the protagonist was still not a favourite. Highly entertaining, this story was a quick but fun, quirky read I was glad I took a chance on.

This book is absolutely one that I needed to digest before compiling any sort of review together. I both liked and disliked this and this book almost feels like it is aimed to a specific type of readership and thus, would be hard to recommend.

Following a very unlikeable protagonist, we see her most unhinged, angry, mundane and complicated thoughts reflected through the fragmented writing style. This initially, I was incredibly drawn to and it started out as a fascinating story following somebody who is OBSESSED with cyberstalking a woman who her 'lover' is sleeping with. However for me, this quickly became quite repetitive and by the end I felt like there was no satisfying resolution nor discovery for her character (which perhaps was the point).

This was the epitome of vibes over plot, with no real linear timeline it caused for both a VERY QUICK reading experience but one that I will unfortunately quickly forget. I can absolutely see how many people love this and equally why people do not.

I really wanted to love this book but it just didn't grab me. While the story left some to be desired, Patel's writing style was enough to keep me turning pages. 3 Stars.