Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada, McClelland & Stewart and to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

This book wasn't at all what I was expecting. I feel like the title is a little misleading. This book was well written and a really good story, but just not what it seemed to be.

This was a good book with some really good stories, other stories were a little boring.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for a copy of Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart.

Superfan is about fetishization of Asian women. Female rage. Grief, identity, family, belonging. Mother-daughter relationships. Racism in publishing. Racism everywhere. Microagression. Othering. White vs intersectional feminism. Comforts of pop culture.

If you loved the show Beef because of the complicated child-parent relationships and angry Asians, you might just enjoy Superfan. I loved this and tore through it. It gave me the same feeling I had when I first read Weike Wang's Chemistry -- the warmth, sadness, and validation from hearing similar experiences from authors who look or had a life like me.

i think i was duped into thinking this was a way different book than it was. i expected more of a cultural discussion of pop culture of recent history and more introspective discussions of how it influences one's sense of self. in place of this was an interesting memoir about family dynamics and broken marriages, interspersed with bracketed allusions to pop culture. i did enjoy it but i think the marketing of this book leaned too heavily into it being a cultural discussion rather than the sad and challenging memoir that it was

This was a good non fiction book to read with lots of touchstones on culture that was so impactful to me and others while still feeling like it wasn't quite for us.

As an Asian Canadian who has found herself in several situations where I was the sole Asian woman in what were more often than not predominately white spaces, I was excited for Jen Sookfong Lee’s memoir. Unfortunately, Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart didn’t turn out to be what I was hoping for. That’s not to say this was a bad read; it was just a more somber read than what I expected from a collection of essays about pop culture.

The rest of this review can be found at the link attached.

I wanted to like this more than I did. That being said, the reasons I didn't like it don't take away from the power or depth of this story. Lee has a way with words. Her stories transport you to a time in her Canadian household, late eighties references littered throughout the essays. She easily moves between little moments to build a full picture of each story that she told, often covering years or multiple experiences.

The formatting is also appealing. I like the breaks of having the various essays and traveling between different people and moments from Lee's life. I did feel some were too long for the essay style though. I understood that it was following a similar path or showcasing different sides of the same topic, but some felt a little long.

The reason I didn't connect with this was some of it felt repetitive and the pop culture was often buried in her life. While some really stood out to me (Bob Ross, Rihanna, JB), a lot of them felt lost in the stories of her life. And as I said, as a memoir, that's fine! It just wasn't what I had expected when it said it was a pop culture memoir.

I also have to acknowledge that I'm not the target audience for this. While we're close in age, it's just enough of a difference to create a gap between my connection with a lot of these pop culture moments. I'm also a white American girl, so a lot of the fetish and racism aspects I could see, but didn't understand in a way that a Chinese woman would. I also don't have the cultural background to understand the nuances of their parental relationships. Parts of the stories read like abuse and neglect and were really hard to get through.

Regardless of my disconnect, I'd highly recommend this to readers. Her writing is really well done, the stories are engaging, and it presents a unique point of view by using the references.

This was such a fun and unique title. From the cover to the contents, Lee had me hooked. Nonfiction is one of those hit and miss genres for me, but I really love biographies and memoirs. Especially when they hit close to home. As someone who is a superfan of different areas of pop culture myself, it was very interesting, eye opening, and at times heartbreaking to see this phenomenon through Lee's lens.

This book gave me all of the feels. I felt deeply connected to Sookfong Lee’s description of her childhood, her relationship with her mother and her sense of identity. I understood her looking at her life through pop culture over the years and commenting on her life through it. I loved this book! I haven’t read her other books but will pick them up.

I think this is a solid fan analysis, not sure of how much it will move in a library collection. A second round purchase for most libraries.

Thank you to the publishers and Net Galley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

In a series of poignant essays, Jen Sookfong Lee’s memoir, ‘Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart,’ reflects on her childhood and upbringing as the fifth daughter of Chinese immigrant parents in Canada. In those essays, Lee primarily uses pop culture to show how it had been a place of comfort in her upbringing and as a vehicle to draw a comparison and analyze pivotal moments and lessons throughout her life. Lee discusses loss, grief, fetishization, racism, divorce, starting fresh, and her relationships with her culture and family, amongst other themes.

I thoroughly enjoyed every essay in this collection. Lee does an incredible job of utilizing pop culture to illustrate her point. As mentioned above, she primarily uses it in two ways:

1) As a form of solace during her upbringing, between Anne of Green Gables and Bob Ross, I was in tears. While I am not Chinese, I am the daughter of Immigrants living in Canada, and I found Lee’s early years to parallel a lot of my own. Lee uses the pop culture she engaged with as a child to illustrate her struggles in a very tangible way. The essays were honest, painful, and very resonant.

2) As a vehicle to expand on social commentary. I found the second half of the memoir to be incredibly interesting. Lee uses pop culture to draw comparisons, explain, and analyze these pivotal moments in her life. She opens discussions on divorce and ending relationships while talking about Goop, she discusses women’s roles and the idea of a ‘genius’ through Justin Bieber, and she analyzes racism, fetishization, and cultural appropriation through many more examples. They were thought-provoking and genuine, and her writing is incredibly compelling.

I recommend this book to readers who enjoy unconventional memoirs, the ones that are part-memoir-commentary like those of Roxanne Gay and Aubrey Gordon.

Superfans and lovers of pop culture - unite! You'll find a best friend in Jen Sonfong Lee. She is a fan girl as big as the rest of us deeply affected to her core by someone in the spotlight that millions of others are drawn to for one reason or another. You'll find yourself nodding along and laughing at loud as you relate to Lee in so many ways. Such a fun read! Highly recommended!

Jen Sookfong Lee has loved pop culture her whole life. Covering everything from Bob Ross to One Direction and how they have carried her through her life. I loved this SO much. Jen felt like my friend by the end of the book and I found myself nodding along with some of her stories.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the opportunity to read copy. Full disclosure, I follow Jen on Social Media. I am so glad I do. Because of her posts, I got a ticket to attend her book chat with Ethan Hawke. I laughed and cried as I read this book. She shares her family's stories, from her grandfather paying the head tax to her complicated love for her mom. When she writes about Anne of Green Gables, I wanted to hang out at the food court with her wearing matching Au Coton sweatshirts while doodling in our Trapper Keepers. I learned a lot from reading this book that should be required reading for ages 14+. I am grateful for Jen and her blatant honesty. Thank you for being you. As soon as I finished this ARC, I ordered a copy for my library.

4.5!

These essays are phenomenal and dive deep Jen’s life and some pivotal/important parts in her life against the backdrop of pop culture moments (so Rihanna, Sia’s Chandelier, Justin Bieber’s Seasons, Princess Diana, and more). A wonderful look at what it’s like being Asian and a woman in a white Canadian world.

I may or may not have ordered her novels, because Jen sounds so badass and I’m kicking myself for never having read her before.

The audio was amazing, and read by the author, and easy to follow along and pay attention to for any rare audiobook listeners out there like me!

This book is a tough one for me to review. Some chapters had me glued to my kindle (like the Bob Ross one that resonated so deeply with me) while others just didn’t grip me as much. One thing I appreciate is the author’s ability to draw readers into her own experience with pop culture icons even if they weren’t topics I was familiar with. Some chapters felt unnecessarily drawn out or not tied together as much, but overall I enjoyed her style quite a bit.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for this Arc!! Superfan describes the trials and tribulations of author Jen Sookfong Lee's life in relation to the Pop Culture that she grew up around. We see her talk about her very tumultous relationship with her mother in relation to Kris Jenner, her experience understanding femininty and womanhood in comparison to celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, and my favorite her understanding of loss and grief through her connection with Bob Ross. As someone who has such a foot into the world of pop culture, I can see how and why this world plays such a huge role in Jen's life (it plays almost an even bigger role in my own life.) It was refreshing to read about Jen's life growing up as an Asian Canadian in Vancouver, when I find myself in the same circumstances. She doesn't shy away from talking about topics that sits on everyone's mind but some may find too brash to discuss. I found this to be an enjoyable and times complex read, and one I think most people my age will be able to connect to! A very very good read :)

Absorbing, funny, and sharp. The cultural criticisms mixed with personal histories is my favourite kind of essays and these did not disappoint! I loved getting a glimpse into Jen Sookfong Lees world and gaining access to her experiences mixed with clever pop culture insights.