Thank you for a review copy of this book. I was drawn to this book due to the premise of the story. The book started out strong but fell a little flat in the second half of the book. I liked the characters as well as the ideas of the story, but the writing was a little hard for me to keep my attention throughout the entire book. Overall, I would like to read another book by this author in the future.

I forgot to leave a review for this, but I really enjoyed it! It's been out for ages, so I won't say much more than I need to for my star rating. <3

I really love the idea for this book but unfortunately the execution of it just didn't work for me. The writing style just wasn't all there for me

Great thriller that explores the dark side of fandom and all that involves. Was tense and well-paced.

They say idle hands are the devil's playground, so it should be no surprise when boredom leads to a slew of terrible things. In the case of Erin Mayer's debut novel Fan Club, a Millennial who is feeling dispassionate about her work on a women's lifestyle website, becomes fixated on a pop star, Adriana Argento, and finds herself joining an obsessive group of her female followers, akin to a celebrity-crazed cult.

Our unnamed narrator spends her days on the job cleaning up the articles written by others deemed more important to the website she works for than herself. She steals time from the company by taking four coffee breaks a day and hiding in the bathroom, wishing her life amounted to something bigger. When a coworker notices that our narrator has taken a keen interest in Adriana Argento, current celebrity IT girl, she invites her to meet up with a group of similar-minded women who also share an interest in the pop star.

However, our narrator soon discovers that these rabid fans are over-the-top obsessed with everything Adriana does, and the more time she spends with them, the more tightly she finds herself wrapped up in their frenzied world. Pretty soon our narrator is eating, sleeping, breathing Adriana, constantly checking on her every move and making the pop star the focus of her life. What she didn't expect, however, is how far this fan club will go to own Adriana, mind, body, and soul.

Fan Club is a frenetic fall into what it means to be young, bored, and celebrity obsessed. Millennials tend to be painted in a negative light, and everything that is purported to be bad about the generation - lazy, self-obsessed, social media-crazed - is magnified here in Fan Club. This novel pushes the Millennial stereotype to the extreme and exposes the dark side of a generation consumed with owning and being.

As a Millennial myself, I quite enjoyed this novel's descriptions of workplace politics and general life dissatisfaction, although many other reviewers found these portions of the novel to be tedious. However, I think it feeds well into the latter parts of the book, which are written in a stream of consciousness haze, showing how our narrator, a woman lost, searching for meaning, and looking to belong, becomes entrenched in what can only be described as a fanatical cult.

The book's disjointed later chapters were my least favorite part of this murky novel. They are written with such hysteria and madness, that I couldn't quite trust my eyes, which made me feel as if I was misinterpreting the story or missing some key elements.

Fan Club is a millennial-focused psychological thriller about the boringness of day-to-day life and getting trapped in obsession. The narrator is stuck in a menial position at an online lifestyle magazine and socializes rarely and mostly only when forced to. While out at a bar with colleagues one night, she hears a song that starts an obsession with a famous singer. As her obsession grows deeper, she stumbles onto a fan club that brings her to their obsessive and dark ways. But it turns out this club might have more to them than just basic fanfare. This a dark, not always positive story about the dark paths that people can stumble down in their lives. Because of the tones this book is not for everyone but for those who can set aside their rose colored glasses will find an enjoyable ride.

Fan Club is a fascinating story about the dark side of social media and our obsession with celebrities. The story follows an unnamed narrator as she discovers international pop star Adriana Argento and loses herself to the online fandom. It quickly becomes an obsession and she's invited to join a group of Adriana superfans who call themselves the Ivies. Our narrator doesn't realize just how deep this group is willing to go to worship Adriana. The story is filled with twists and secrets. It is interesting being told in first-person by an unnamed narrator. Although scary, the plot doesn't feel entirely out of the realm of reality which speaks to our culture. Highly recommended! Be sure to check out Fan Club today.

Fan Club is an adult mystery thriller by author Erin Mayer. This book was a wild ride! I thought it was completely fascinating. I loved this look into the idea of celebrity worship and how social media has shaped and warped fans relationships with celebrities. It was a riveting read. The ending of the book was a little head scratching and I am still not sure what I think about it, but it made me think- that’s for sure! (If you have read Fan Club…comment below or message me because I need to discuss!)

In Fan Club, we meet our main character, edits and posts web content for a millennial website, and she is very bored with her life. I liked her group of work friends, but she wasn’t too impressed with any of them. I as always hoping for her to realize her original friendships were meaningful, but the book took a different turn. While stuck in the monotony of her life, she hears an Adriana Argento song on the radio and quickly becomes obsessed. She goes from a casual listener to a verifiable internet stalker in a matter of days. From there she finds a group of local Ariana fans and their obsession turns to something darker.

Fan Club was totally intriguing. I loved this take on a thriller/mystery. If you are as fascinated by celebrity culture and social media, like I am- I think you should check out Fan Club. This was a really cool book!

Unfortunately I could not get in to this one. I think my reading tastes are changing. I will update my review if I try and read again.

Social media and celebrity obsession cross paths in this oddly engrossing tale. On one hand I couldn’t look away, and on the other I couldn’t figure out what in the world I was reading. I would classify it like reading a tabloid celebrity magazine…not necessarily a bad thing, but not really a good thing either. Kinda just an entertaining thing.

Fan Club is look at celebrity obsession featuring a millennial who works at an entry-level, dead-end job as a web producer for an internet magazine. She’s unhappy with her job and unfulfilled, and she puts in her time and goes home to her small apartment and surly roommate at night only to do it all over again the next day.

Once she falls in with a group of women who adore pop singer Adriana Argento, and their cliquey group does more than meet and obsess over everything this woman does. Things turn very dark and sinister as the main character starts to fall down a rabbit hole where she can’t tell reality from day dreams until it’s too late.

I give Fan Club a 3.5 out of 5. The writing was engaging and the author captured the pervasive boredom and searching for importance and just more out of life that people get quite perfectly. Fan Club is a mostly engaging look at social media, celebrity obsession, and how fans can go too far to get close to the celebs they love. The main character is never named, and she’s pretty bland and lifeless until she meets the other superfans and finally starts to grow some gumption as things spiral out of control. The tension isn’t consistent or rising throughout, and this inconsistent feel makes the book slow in several spots. Overall, this book is a clever look at fandom, obsession, and how it can steal and ordinary person’s life.

This book has taken me over a month to review but I know it was impactful because I’m honestly still thinking about it. The writing and narrative style is not similar to anything I’ve read, and I often felt like I was in a fever dream while reading it, but I also couldn’t put it down. Unique, twisted, and with an interesting social commentary!

This book was one of the sort that it took me a bit to decide how I felt about it. Overall I think it is an interesting commentary on not just fan culture, but how many of us seek to find a sense of belonging and identity through engagement with others. And while it is nothing new, this book excellently portrays the stark contrast between what is on social media and someone’s true life and self.

Narrated largely by a nameless young millennial office worker (though I’d argue depending on what year this is deemed to take place, she might actually be gen z due to her age), the book opens with the soul crushing monotony and of our narrator’s job at a women’s lifestyle website. She arrives at work, spends her day reformatting, prepping, testing, and launching content designed by the other more important writers and editors at her office. She barely speaks to anyone out loud all day—that is the office culture.

Her main joy during the day (if you can even call it that) is her four scheduled coffee breaks where she makes a hazelnut Keurig coffee, fills her cat mug, and takes it to the restroom to stand in the pink handicap stall for 15 minutes and looks at a piece of graffiti while she searches for some sense of purpose in her life.

She has a best friend but frankly they seem to have nothing in common other than growing up together. Her friend is in publishing and has seen career and relationship success, but she doesn’t feel like a real person. Similar to the celebrity our narrator will soon become obsessed with, her best friend feels like a shell of who she actually is—carefully crafted like an Instagram page to project a certain life she aspires to have.

Sometimes after work our narrator goes out with the other low-ranking team members who perform her same role. One night she has too much to drink and makes out with one of her coworkers who is married and keeps a photo of his wife at his desk. A song playing over the speaker soon pulls her out of the moment, and she flees the bar to go home.

The song is by Adrianna Argento, a young, beautiful pop star in a famous couple with another celebrity. Our narrator slowly becomes obsessed with Adrianna’s music, listening to it most of the day and night while she continues to push through the monotony of her life. While initially embarrassed to let anyone know she is a fan of Adrianna, she soon meets a new co-worker who gets it, and invites her to get together with a group of friends and fellow Adrianna fans.

This is when the book really takes off. I don’t want to say too much, other than that from the moment the narrator joins the fan group, she feels a strong desire to be accepted, while also seeming to understand that something is off about the other women. For starters, they have a very cultlike feel to the group, and there is a clear leader. They also seem to love Adrianna but are simultaneously hyper critical of much of what she does.

For instance, our narrator became a fan of Adrianna because of the song she heard on the dance floor that night. But she soon learns this group of fans hates all of Adrianna’s new music. The group is obsessed with Adrianna, but they also feel entitled to have her life and career go the way they want it to. They seem to adore her and hate her at the same time. Their behavior often implies that they like the idea of Adrianna more than the person and the artist.

As things get weirder with the fan club, the author also starts pulling bits of Adrianna’s story into the narrative, narrated by Adrianna herself. These were perhaps the most compelling chapters, as the contrast between who Adrianna really is and what the fan club thinks she is becomes more apparent.

I won’t say where the book heads because I think part of the fun is going along for the ride. The book becomes increasingly disorienting as you read it, and this is in part because the author has so masterfully set the tone early of a mind-numbing nameless person drifting through life with almost no connection to the physical world surrounding her.

I have to say that the ending is so deeply compelling and shocking. I have spent weeks thinking back on the book itself and reflecting on the message it sends to the reader.

If you are looking for something new and different, this is it!

This psychological “thriller” missed the mark for me. Unfortunately, it was less of a thriller and more of a very slow burn story about a crazy fangirl who becomes obsessed with a singer and joins a cult of like-minded women. It read as incredibly far-fetched and bizarre at times, and was just too slow for my liking. Unfortunately, this one fell flat for me.

This book was extremely bizarre. Perhaps it's an age thing, and I'm just too old to understand a lot of the references in this book, but I found myself struggling to figure out what was happening.

This book had an identity crisis of its own. The characters were all unlikeable except for the doomed pop star. The plot points were fantastical and came out of nowhere. A lot of it was repetitive and circular. The writing was literary and at times profound, but that just contributed to the disjointedness of the book.

I thought the subject sounded great and was right up my alley, however as it got going it was not really for me, it didn't hold my interest, and I was expecting more of a thriller type story I think. What I did like was the social media obsessed culture aspect, as creepy as it was in here it was a bit chilling to know this probably was not too far from reality. Overall though this did not work for me like I thought it would.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the digital copy to review.

I am certainly a sucker for celebrity gossip so I was immediately intrigued by this plot and premise!

While it’s a thrilling idea to dive into our obsessive society and the social media stalking, this one just missed the mark for me. The scary part is I feel like Mayer did nail the aspect that this type of culture and cults really do exist in real life. I think with this being labeled as a psychological thriller, I was just looking to be a little more thrilled.

Here’s the ultimate question - how far is too far?

I picked this one up because of a tweet, and I have no regrets. It's a pretty fun, super readable, very modern story about millennial drudgery and celebrity obsession. The characters were largely believable and the plot moved fast, but ultimately I felt that the intensity of the fan club's devotion was never really that well explained. There's a central thing they do at all their meetings -- which I guess was the thing that bound them all together in their mutual obsession? -- that never made any kind of sense to me at all. But eh, still a fun, low-stakes read, which is sometimes all you really want.

New to me author but definitely won't be last. Thoroughly enjoyed this story. Thanks Netgalley and to the publisher for letting me read this advance copy.

Ever heard of a "rabbit hole"? The beginning of Erin Mayer's new novel reminds me a lot like this. Bored with her day job, drinking sorrows away... Hearing a song that strikes a cord... Next thing you know, you're online doing a search and then hours later you're hooked and have visited site after site.

The narrator in "Fan Club" does just this when she becomes obsessed with Adriana Argento. However, the deeper she gets into the online world of Adriana superfans, the more things start to spiral.

This book is a look at what can easily happen in today's modern world - and it's mind bending and twisting. And honestly, I loved it. I found myself wrapped up in page after page, unable to put it down... which almost felt like my own personal rabbit hole!