BLOG TOUR and REVIEW: Fan Club by Erin Mayer
Fan Club
by Erin Mayer
Thanks so much to MIRA for this gifted book and stop on the blog tour.
Publisher: MIRA
Publish Date: October 26, 2021
Paperback
320 Pages
Standalone
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Bookshop.org | Indie Bound | Books-A-Million | B&N
In this raucous psychological thriller, a millennial office worker finds relief from her crippling ennui in the embrace of a cliquey fan club, until she discovers the group of women is bound together by something darker than devotion.
Day after day our narrator, a gloomy millennial, searches for meaning beyond her vacuous job at a women's lifestyle website—entering text into a computer system while she watches their beauty editor unwrap box after box of perfectly packaged bits of happiness. Then, one night at a dive bar, she hears a message in the newest single by child-actor-turned-international-pop-star Adriana Argento, and she is struck. Soon she loses herself to the online fandom, a community whose members feverishly track Adriana's every move.
When a colleague notices the extent of her obsession, she’s invited to join an enigmatic group of adult Adriana superfans who call themselves the Ivies and worship her music in witchy, candlelit listening parties. As the narrator becomes more entrenched in the group, she gets closer to uncovering the sinister secrets that bind them together—while simultaneously losing her grip on reality.
With caustic wit and hypnotic writing, this unsparingly critical thrill ride through millennial life examines all that is wrong in our celebrity-obsessed internet age, and how easy it is to lose yourself in it.
Erin Mayer is a freelance writer and editor based in Maine. Her work has appeared in Business Insider, Man Repeller, Literary Hub, and others. She was previously an associate fashion and beauty editor at Bustle.com.
My Review:
Have you ever just been OBSESSED with a celebrity? Like tracking them online everywhere, listening to their music over and over again, etc... and then find a group that is equally as obsessed (if not more) and you just end up spiraling out of control? Yeah, me neither but our unnamed protagonist is excessively nuts.. and while I do enjoy crazy, this one just didn't quite work for me. Maybe if the celebrity in question wasn't who I think she was? *shrug*
Mayer does a good job showcasing how celebrity obsession is a real thing - and it truly is unbelievably crazy. Remember reading about celebrity deaths at the hands of their stalker/#1 fan? Yeah - I'm not sure if the perks would outweigh always being watched. For me, this started quite slow... and yet I understood where the main character was headed - daily trudging of life at a desk just to get home, shove some food down the throat, watch a little tv, avoid the roommate and then wake up to do it all over again. How mundane. But once you find yourself involved with some absolutely insane women... well, life sure isn't boring anymore but you may regret your decision making.
Unfortunately the ending kinda killed the whole shebang for me. I have a love/hate relationship with these kinds of endings and this one clearly fell on the latter side. If they adapted it would I watch it? Absolutely - I think this particular kind of read would resonate better for me on screen.
★★
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