In ‘I’m A Fan’, we have an unnamed narrator who’s in an unequal relationship with a man she refers to as ‘The Man I Want To Be With’, throughout the book. She also regularly cyber-stalks this man other lover who she calls ‘The Women I Am Obsessed With’.
This is the story of how gender, love, power, hierarchy, trauma, culture and tech intersect to show a scorching reality of today’s times.
Reading this book was a thoroughly immersive experience. Two-page chapters make reading more aspirational, and that only added to the brilliance of the book. This Sheena Patel debut is original, daring, and deeply impactful.
It is a cutting critique of asymmetrical relationships, racism and misogyny, access, algorithms and the cultural shift caused by them. The book also wins for conveying these things in a matter-of-factly way instead of being preachy.
I appreciate, also, how the book poses a lot of questions around structural changes and systemic shifts, instead of being yet another rant on armchair activism. That truly helps make the critique of these systems and isms grounded and nudges the reader towards reflection.
I’ve had an extremely turbulent relationship with power, and parts of this book were extremely triggering, and gave me a lot of flashbacks. But, it was gratifying and validating reading those parts.
It’s one of the most original voices I’ve read in the past couple of years, and it’s easily made its way in my list of ‘books-I-loved-so-much-I’ll-gift-them.’
If you’ve read this book. tell me how you liked it?
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