Fan Club by Erin Mayer Pages: 320
Published by Mira on October 26, 2021
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.
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!
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