A headlong rush of a thriller/horror that is Misery for Millennials, about a bestselling author who is abducted by her biggest fan and must figure out who he is, where she is, and how to survive and escape, set against the backdrop of fan and convention culture, the literati and the #metoo movement.

 

Bestselling fantasy author Eli Grey gets into a cab without checking it’s hers, and unquestioningly accepts a drink from the driver. Then she wakes up chained in his basement. With no close family or friends expecting her to check in, Eli knows she’s on her own to save herself. She soon realizes that her abduction wasn’t random–she was targeted. And though she thinks she might recognize her captor, she can’t figure out quite why, or what he wants. But it is clear that he is very familiar with her work, and deeply invested in the fantastical world she created in her books. What follows is a test of wills as Eli pits herself against a man who believes she owes him everything and is determined to take it from her.

 

With unflinching prose, NUMBER ONE FAN examines the tension between creator and work, fandom and source material, and the rage of fans who feel they own fiction.

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

It was a line that she had hated. Had, in fact, told the screenwriter that it dripped with cheese like a plate of truck stop nachos…

Some men have a way of eating you with their eyes, and she had been gobbled up before. She knew that look. He wouldn’t look anywhere but her face. He blinked slowly, like a creature of the depths of the sea that rarely saw the sun.

… relief welling up in her like an intensity like she’d never known. It was like every safe plane landing she’d ever had, the feeling when her credit card went through, the fall into a comfortable chair with her bra off at the end of a hard day all rolled together and sharpened into a needle.

My Review:

 

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, what did I fall into? This was a tense and distressingly and painfully realistic read that was skin-crawling creepy. Much like coming upon a bad accident or train wreck, I was compelled to look but didn’t want to see at the same time. I cringed and flinched while reading but was also intrigued and couldn’t seem to leave it alone, and finished with ragged cuticles, my shoulders in my ears, and a sigh of relief. Tomorrow needs to be a spa day to work the knots of tension out of my neck. Meg Elison is one twisted sister but weaves a mighty tale.