Fan Club

By: Erin Mayer

Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez

“Mayer lays bare the terrible destiny of a society obsessed with social media stalking and celebrity relationships.” —Julia Heaberlin, bestselling author of We Are All the Same in the Dark

In this raucous psychological thriller, a disillusioned millennial joins a cliquey fan club, only to discover that the group is bound together by something darker than devotion

Day after day our narrator 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 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 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.

No thanks.

The premise of this book seemed intriguing but oh my god. It dragged. The narrator has no inflections so it sounds like you're listening to a lecture. There is literally no story line. I listened to this for 4 hours and now am officially DNF'ing this one. Ugh.

Spoilers in review - do not recommend

I was really looking forward to this book but ended up let down. First and foremost this book is NOT a thriller. That is not a deal breaker for me at all as I will read most any genre, but there was nothing exciting or suspenseful. It was very obvious who was crazy from the start, and I’m not saying it’s obvious in that snotty way some readers say “oh I saw that coming” when it’s a twist 99% of people didn’t expect. There just was no twist. It was very straightforward that the fan club was off their collective rocker. At first I thought the main character’s millennial anxiety and general ennui was somewhat relatable. I was reminded of the book Sweetbitter because of how disjointed the stream of consciousness thoughts were, kind of like a fever dream. But eventually the writing just ended up pretentious in an angsty way. It’s like the author used a broody teenager’s 2002 Live Journal blog posts to come up with the most convoluted, dramatic metaphors and adjectives for every single thought the MC had. It was like she consulted a thesaurus made specifically for Lydia Deetz cosplayers for every single sentence. All the dramatic descriptions of the mundane got to be really exhausting after a while. I felt like I was listening to someone with a charmed life telling me all about their experiences with slam poetry as an outlet for their “issues.”
I also was kind of annoyed by the descriptions of drinking and drugs. It definitely seemed like the author had never partaken. The descriptions of what one sip of wine or one Xanax pill could do instantaneously were nonsensical. The main character was immature and had a bad attitude/superiority complex despite her massive insecurities so I never really rooted for her.
Additionally, it was so painfully obvious that Adriana Argento and Nolan Lynch were based on Ariana Grande and Mac Miller. Considering Mac Miller died of an overdose, it was pretty tacky that the Nolan character was fresh out of rehab. Adriana may have had blond hair, but all the mentions of the high ponytails and whistle tones and former Disney channel stardom took you out of the story and you only saw Ariana Grande.
As far as the fan club itself, there was no buildup at all for the main character to get sucked in to her Adriana obsession so quickly. It just came out of nowhere and she was a die-hard after hearing one song.
The pacing was totally off, with some chapters being 3 times as long as others, and the chapter jumped days at a time and switched perspectives from the main character to Adriana without any flow that made sense. Then the ending is left open-ended for you to guess what happens. I can’t say that this is one I would recommend.

Great writing, but…

Two stars for the writing skill and capturing the voice. But the plot didn’t work for me.