I'm a Fan: A Novel [Paperback]

A fast, fizzing cherry bomb of a debut (The Observer[UK]) about power, intimacy, and the internet

I stalk a woman on the internet who is sleeping with the same man as I am.

Sheena Patels incandescent first novel begins with the unnamed narrator describing her involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship. With a clear and unforgiving eye, she dissects the behavior of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world.Im a Fanoffers a devastating critique of class, social media, patriarchys hold on us, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed.

In this unforgettable debut, Patel announces herself as a dynamic, commanding new voice in literature, capable of rendering a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences viscerally on the page. Sex, brutality, politics, work, art, tenderness, humorPatel tackles them all while making the reader complicit in the inescapable trap of fandom that seems to define the modern condition.

Shortlisted for the 2023 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize
Longlisted for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize

I read this debut book basically in one sitting over the summer. . . . The narrative voice is hypnotic, hilarious, and unexpected in all the best ways. You cant stop reading it.Ottessa Moshfegh,Vogue's 5 Books That Changed My Life

Sheena PatelsI'm a Fanis an impolite novel about romantic obsession . . . allowing the narrators ferocious id to spin out thrillingly and unapologetically. . . . Patels clever novel suggests just how easily such ambitions can be lost in the power imbalance of heterosexual libidinal attachment.Tracy O'Neill,The New York Times Book Review

A queasy, ruthless novel of sexual obsel£%