Book Review - Number One Fan by Meg Elison

Title: Number One Fan
Author: Meg Elison
Genre: Thriller
Published: 2022
 
Description: On her way to a speaking engagement, bestselling novelist Eli Grey gets into a cab and accepts a drink from the driver, trusting that everything is fine. She wakes up chained in the stranger’s basement. With no close family or friends expecting her to check in, Eli knows she needs to save herself. She soon realizes that her abduction wasn’t random, and though she things she might recognize the captor, she cant figure out what he wants. Her only clues are that he’s very familiar with her books and deeply invested in the fantastical world she creates. 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.
 
Review: The first thing that came to mind, when reading the synopsis, was “Misery” by Stephen King. In this book, Annie Wilkes, number one fan of author Paul Sheldon, keeps her favorite writer hostage in her house and is obsessed with his work and its main character. In “Number One Fan”, the genders are swapped, but the set-up is similar.
 
Eli Grey is the author of fantasy novels and is kept chained in a basement of a man who is a fan of her work. This captor remains unnamed at first, but we soon learn who he is. But we are still left in the dark about his motives. The story is very different from “Misery” aside from the premise, but it’s clear this book was an inspiration for Meg Elison.
 
The book is pretty disturbing and gruesome, in what the captor does to Eli and the circumstances he lets her live in. The story is told from the third person and that works well. This way we get to know things that the other characters don’t know yet.
 
WARNING!!! THE NEXT PART MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!
 
Towards the end, we are in the courtroom. I did not like this part of the book and it ruined my overall experience of the book. I would’ve been more interested in Eli’s state of mind after the fact and how she would be dealing with everything. We get a small glimpse of it, but Elison could have explored this more.
 
“Number One Fan” is a disturbing thriller novel, that is well-written but didn’t quite stick the landing in the end. I found that last part a bit disappointing.
 
Rating: 3/ 5