Reviews

This didn’t really make sense to me at all throughout but I couldn’t put it down. This is an extremely graphic body horror novel so I would bare that in mind before reading if you get queasy easily!!
I didn’t really like the ending, it seemed very sudden and didn’t really make sense to me (even less than the rest of the book)

Like why would Vanya, who is non binary, be spending time with TERFs? Why are there worms coming out of peoples eyes where did this come from? I get their brain worms but ? HOW??? 😫

moreglittermorefur's review

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challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

kate_cunningham's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

transmonstergirl's review

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About two-thirds of the way through Brainwyrms, in the midst of a hallucinogenic and nightmarish second-person interlude, author Alison Rumfitt pulls the narrative to a stop to address the reader directly with a very simple message: This might be a good time to take a break. Things are about to get nasty.

In any other book, such a disruptive warning would come off as overwrought and self-serving, even patronizing, given the contents of the 175 pages you must have already endured to reach this point. Here, it feels like common courtesy. It’s something of a cliche to say that a book is “not for the faint of heart”, but this one truly earns it—the panoply of viscera, bodily fluids, and abusive sexual dynamics that Rumfitt manages to cram into a brisk three hundred pages is sure to alienate all but the most dedicated (and strong-stomached) readers.

The key, ultimately, is that none of the nausea-inducing content ever feels gratuitous. The book is purposefully attempting to evoke a very specific kind of disgust, and it does so with incredible precision.. The horror genre has long been a breeding ground for social commentary, and Brainwyrms, set in a near-future UK where the rising tide of fascism has continued unabated and the situation for trans people has gotten somehow even worse than it is in the present, is no different. The creeping terror of trying to live in a society that openly despises you, watching even those you considered as friends or family turn on you like they’ve been infected by some kind of parasitic force, will unfortunately be deeply resonant to those who can make it through.

Rumfitt is no stranger to the subject matter, of course. Her first novel, Tell Me I’m Worthless (initially published in the UK in 2021), attended to many of the same concerns, although to somewhat mixed results. Compared to Brainwyrms, that effort feels like little more than a warm-up. The commentary here isn’t any more subtle, but it feels a great deal sharper. The prose, certainly, is vastly more confident, freed from the need to remind readers of other, better variations of the same story every twenty pages.

Although the monologues can still occasionally drag for a sentence or two, she keeps the imagery concise, punchy, and memorably nasty, to an astonishing degree—many of the choicest pulls would probably get this review deleted on sight, but during one explosive scene, a woman’s worm-eaten face opens up “like a flower in the midday sunlight, but the petals were wet, and horribly alive [...] pushing in and filling her until she was fit to burst”, which isn’t an easy thing to forget.

Through it all, lead characters Frankie and Vanya feel deeply, awfully human. As in Tell Me I’m Worthless, these are people who have already been gravely hurt long before the novel begins, left to tumble down inevitable paths no matter how much we root for them to heal and stop hurting each other even further. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but it might just be here to burn everything down.

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