“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!

I loved this book. Told in nearly stream of consciousness vignettes, the unnamed narrator and protagonist weaves a story in which she is romantically involved with a man who is married and also involved with two other women. The protagonist is in a relationship herself. She becomes obsessed with one of the women the man is in a relationship with and follows her on social media. Through the short scenes and musings she shares, Sheena Patel explores how unequal and fraught with power differentials so many relationships are. She includes piercing cultural criticism of white feminism and neoliberalism, especially in a post 2020 world where, as she puts it, "liberal whites have gotten much better at disguising themselves post George Floyd." Our protagonist is far from perfect, and her actions are difficult to read about at times, but the writing visceral and leaves you both angry at her and angry for her.

Thanks to Graywolf Press and NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Teetering on spectacle and obsession, Sheena Patel gives an unrelenting glimpse into just how far obsession can take a person infatuated with another person. The cyclical nature of the narrator's thoughts toward a man she wants but can't have never quite feels enlightening to the situation at hand, nor even to our narrator. Despite desire being the focal point of I'm A Fan, its most endearing quality is its investigation of shame. Our narrator seems most preoccupied with wondering how her stance as a woman can affect her capacity to love and be loved, which is what stuck with me most about the story. While a fun romp on its own, it's hard to separate I'm A Fan on the coattails of writers who have come before her, such as Annie Ernaux, writing similar takes on desire. Although, what I think Patel does better, is spotlighting how much of a show it is to be in love, whether at our own will or question the construct of romance in the construct of a novel.

[3.5 stars] A cutting & observant critique of toxic relationships and how society's patriarchal standards favour men regardless of how awful they are. A sickeningly accurate punch in the gut for any woman who's ever been in a relationship where they've been left feeling led on and manipulated. The nameless protagonist makes no secret of being a flawed individual making some questionable decisions, though her feelings of gradually becoming obsessed with things she can't have and feeling relegated to just being a 'fan' will be relatable on some level. Her experiences with the bizarre cult-like following of the white influencer world seem almost like a parody but at the same time too close to reality for comfort.

I felt like some parts seemed unnecessary to the story and trying to be a little too weird and edgy, but overall a fascinating and memorable cultural commentary.

An unhinged messy woman debut for the chronically online.

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Through the lens of a toxic situationship, we get a voyeuristic peak into the mind of an unnamed main character who is ~going through it~. It's a self-sabotaging spiral that's both compelling and hard to watch, knowing our narrator is fully aware of their choices.

Insular, sour, and occasionally witty - our narrator is highly self-aware from the start, turning a scathingly critical eye on herself and the objects of her attention, as well as the systemic institutions that underpin our society—patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy.

Told in a series of short chapters (often titled with references to social media trends or contemporary art); the stylistic choices here are intriguing (short, punchy, observant). Very much like reading an Instagram caption or peeking into someone's thoughts in their Notes app.

As you navigate through this book, the structure further creates a sense that this, too, has been curated for an audience, mirroring the very nature of our online lives.

Insightful and exhausting - I think this read will have a divisive reception.