Uniquely written, quick read, but evoked a lot of emotion and feeling through text. I found myself connecting with the character and her critique of relationships and social media in today's landscape.

I’m a Fan places the reader in the very real world of social media influencers and their followers longing for the perfect lives portrayed online.

The nameless narrator cheats on her boyfriend with a man who cheats on his wife with her (and many others). The narrator becomes obsessed with her lover’s lover: an influencer leading a seemingly perfect, aesthetically pleasing, farm to table existence. The narrator becomes completely entrenched in the woman’s world, stalking her online and in person, finding any details she can to understand the life this woman lives—and why her lover seems to prefer this woman over her.

The narrator’s internal monologue is conniving, scathing, and erratic. She makes astute observations about the art world, social media culture, capitalism and consumerism, race, and class while unraveling in her own sanity and becoming painfully desperate for her lover’s attention.

Anyone interested in a critique on the dysfunction of our society who also enjoys the trope of the unreliable, crazed narrator will enjoy this book. Patel’s prose is sizzling and concise; I was surprised that this was her first novel, but I am sure it will not be her last.

I'm A Fan by Sheena Patel is a sharp and unsettling exploration of obsession, power dynamics, and the dark side of modern relationships. The unnamed narrator’s candid reflections on her involvement with a man who’s also seeing someone else are brutal, raw, and often uncomfortable to read—but that’s what makes this book so gripping. Patel has a way of laying everything bare, pulling no punches as she delves into the messiness of human emotions and the ways we navigate desire, status, and the social media-fueled urge to compare ourselves to others.

First, I have to reaffirm as always that an unnamed narrator just WORKS. It works so well when done correctly, but that's not this book's only merit. The writing is incisive, and Patel doesn't shy away from critiquing societal structures and the patriarchy. This isn’t a light read, but it’s certainly thought-provoking and leaves you reflecting on your own place within the digital age and its constant competition for validation. While the themes can feel heavy, I'm A Fan stands out for its boldness and honesty. This author's debut is powerful, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on her future work.

Unsubtle and in your face, this has a frantic pace and a restless, prowling, growling mood - it can get a bit exhausting but is also a compact and confrontational piece of writing, exhilarating at its best. 3.5 stars rounded up.

“I stalk a woman on the internet who is sleeping with the same man as I am.” Hello! How can one resist that first sentence? The entire premise of this debut novel longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023 is contained within those few words. Our unnamed young narrator is in a dysfunctional, dead-end relationship with an older man (never mind the fact that she already has an oblivious boyfriend who seems like a caring nice guy). I found myself wanting to reach through the pages and scream some sense into her, but she wouldn’t have listened because she’s obsessed with her perceived romantic rival, a wealthy internet influencer. The lengths she goes to in order to penetrate the influencer’s inner circle are disturbing; reading about them feels deliciously voyeuristic.

I’m a Fan is a propulsive, addictive read about obsession, deception, and emotional desperation. This is more than just another novel about the state of social media. I couldn’t put this down and loved every salacious minute.

when i say this book is a work of sociological genius, i’m not joking. patel examines themes related to pierre bourdieu’s theory of habitus; she grapples with erving goffman’s dramaturgical theory of the front stage vs. backstage; she contends with karl marx’s critiques of capitalism and how under such a system, even the most “ethical” of purchases are inherently unethical.

to articulate such complex thoughts and express them in the form of a book about a woman’s obsession with her reluctant lover’s instagram famous lover is such a stroke of millennial genius. i ate it up. sheena patel, the woman that you are!

i wouldn’t recommend this to everyone but it was definitely a winner for me!! i can’t wait to read what she writes next.

thank you to the publisher for the e-arc.

our narrator is a woman caught up in a messy relationship with “the man im in love with” who can’t be tied down, as a result she becomes enthralled with the copious women he’s dating. one of them stands out as “the woman im obsessed with”.

“the woman im obsessed with” is a conventionally attractive white woman with a instagram following and it is through the social media platform that our narrator knows and stalks her. in fact i’m a fan is a stunning critic on the social media age and it’s easy access to people through the platforms. it also dunks on influencer culture, especially white influencers who build their brand by exploiting minorities and surrounding themselves with beauty from those same marginalized minorities.

while these observations were smart and relatable i couldn’t help like feeling these tangents were a bit dense, it would suddenly shift to a preachy sort of tone which felt a bit out of place with the rest of the novella.

that being said, i’m a fan is a compulsively readable story with an unhinged narrator who’s obsession and jealousy brings her to the brink.

This one unfortunately was not for me. The stream of consciousness writing style was not something I found enjoyable. I think there's a lot of interesting things to be said in this book, but ultimately it's me not the book.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this novel. Check it out! It is worth picking up and taking home for the weekend!

there’s nothing I love more than an obsessive, deranged female protagonist seething at the world with anger and self loathing while unabashedly spitting straight facts about white privilege and the patriarchy. the commentary in this one is quick witted, sharp and straight to the point, I can’t get enough.

I love this book!!!

Sharp and propulsive. This is a recommended purchase for collections where crime and thrillers are popular.

Unsubtle is the name of the game with book. I felt like it was supposed to be fun and edgy (and funny!) but it came across as try-hard and tired. Am I supposed to be shocked? Excited? I feel like I was but instead I kind of felt sorry for everyone in this depressing chaotic orbit.

Annie Ernaux for the Gen Z girlies.

Saw some ugly parts of myself in this one and it just goes to show that I AM INSAAANE. In dizzying obsession, we fall deep into social medial blackhole into the life of an influencer while making dream manz our manz through the means of being a woman in a post-consumerist canvainfographicminimalistorganicsmallbusinesssquiggle reality that perpetuates everything wrong with the world and, surprisingly-not-surprisingly, everything wrong with the system at large in a sweeping end that hits all the notes in sex, fury, race, and class.

Patel is a tour-de-force. Don't mess !!!

A woman is having an affair with a man who is having an affair with multiple other women too. There are red flags surrounding the both of them. The toxicity in all of these characters bleed out. The FMC is as unlikable as the MMC.

There isn’t any character growth and I just didn’t get where there would be. There’s emotion, sure, but the way the story is chopped into fragments also gets convoluted. It’s frantic and in your face but I’m a bit bewildered at how messy it was.

Thanks to NetGalley and Graywolf Press for this eARC. I’m a Fan is out now.

Sorry, but I am not a fan at all. I don’t know what I was expecting of this book, but it wasn’t 5 hours of a woman endlessly moping about the married man she’s obsessed with and her jealousy of his partner. I felt like it had moments where I thought it was about to get going, usually when there was critique of racism, classism, etc, but then it would fizzle out without having said anything meaningful. It stayed surface level in all the places where it could’ve delved deep.

Wow What a Crazy Ride!
Sheena Patel has created a fast moving single speaker story of a woman explaining her romantic obsession as she recounts the interactions and considers contemporary society as a whole.

The Narrator is obsessed and her sharp voice will pull you in. She is unapologetic and angry and makes keen observations on social media and the patriarchy. It's truly a fast moving, mind melding read. I look forward to Sheena Patel's next book as I am a Fan!

A young woman is obsessed with a married man she is sleeping with. There are some universal themes in here you might relate to even though you never had an affair with a married man. It was really well done and kept me interested. I love a quirky novel with well-developed characters who are deeply flawed. I’m a Fan was this and more!

3.5, rounded up. This is a fever dream that explores the intense emotional extremes of obsessiveness and self-destructiveness. Our narrator is a millennial woman of South Asian heritage who's sporadically employed in the creative industries, financially insecure, and stuck in a loveless relationship with a vanilla live-in boyfriend.

Most of this short novel consists of chopped-up pieces of monologue about our nameless protagonist's extremely online obsessions, as she pursues an unsatisfying and abusive affair with a famous married artist who's indisputably a narcissistic monster, while she's simultaneously stalking his girlfriend, the privileged daughter of a Mendocino gardener-poet who's an Instagram lifestyle influencer. These recursive thought-spirals felt fresh and insightful at the outset, but by the halfway mark, they started to become repetitive and self-indulgent.

Our narrator intersperses these narrative fragments with essays about how the powerful invisibility of white privilege in British society has been perpetuated through the generations, and the inability of nonwhites to penetrate these rarefied realms of inherited economic wealth and cultural capital. Perhaps the disconnect between her acute social observation and utter lack of self-awareness was the point all along...

Thanks to Graywolf Press and Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

This was a really entertaining and absorbing read. I appreciated the author's look at the current state of tech and how it can take over our lives and make us obsessed.

I can't remember the last time I had so much fun reading a novel; what a blast! Sheena Patel's I'M A FAN tells the story of a woman's twin obsessions, one with the man she's (sorta) sleeping with and one with his lover, while also honing in on our attachments towards technology and social media. The narrative isn't told linearly, but, somehow, the arc of it never gets muddled. I could have followed this narrator anywhere. Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!