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careinthelibrary's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The violence is so visceral. Picking this up was like choosing to plunge full-body into a pool full of sparking livewires (in the best way). It's electric. It's harsh, dark, ultraviolent, perverted, fast, tense, and all of this makes it so realistic. Wonderfully horrific.
This is SO trans. Not just transgender but transgressive. They refuse to fit into the ideal box set up by neoliberal society. They don't always pass. They're pre- "the surgery". They're violent. Loud. Not sexless, in fact they're horny. They're T4T. They don't always use the most pc language for themselves. They don't fit into the gender binary that many demand trans women must in order to be respected or acknowledged as women.
I loved Fran and Beth. They are perfectly imperfect. This makes them so interesting, so real, so compelling. I also loved Indi's character so much. Her fatness isn't hidden away but always described with dignity. She is desirable, intelligent, hardworking, badass. Things we don't see fat people depicted as very often.
The middle chunk of the book got a little chaotic for me with too many perspective changes (it's hard to follow on audio) and plot that I wasn't as interested in. But then the ending got me good, leaving me with tears in my eyes. As hard and cruel as this story is, there is also so much love and tenderness. The sense of community between the four main characters is everything.
I don't like explicit sex in books (I usually just skim-read over those scenes) so obviously this part of the book wasn't my favourite. But that's a me thing, nothing I'd knock down the book's rating for. That being said, there's a lot of criticism about the sexual content in this book and most of it seems to be coming from cis women who are offended by it. So I'll iterate my stance on that.
Depictions of misogyny do not make it a misogynist book. Review bombing a woman's book because you don't agree with her politics does make you misogynist.
I won't police women's depictions of rape which is unfortunately such a common experience of womanhood, and especially trans women's experience. It is graphic and disturbing in Manhunt and I believe it's meant to shock to prove a point and elicit a response. Mine was sympathy, anger, disgust, and kinship. Unfortunately others have failed to sympathize with these women protagonists and instead are apathetic or irritated by its provocative violence. I wonder if these readers resonated more with the ideology of the XX TERFs. I didn't feel that the sexually violent scenes were glorifying or romanticizing sexual assault and I won't presume to tell women how they should or shouldn't discuss, depict, and process sexual violence.
Graphic: Murder, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Cannibalism, Gun violence, Trafficking, Transphobia, Cursing, Dysphoria, Physical abuse, Gore, Body horror, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Self harm, Death, Blood, Hate crime, Medical content, Sexism, Sexual assault, Outing, Violence, and Misogyny
Moderate: Antisemitism
Minor: Incest
mxajlikesbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Gore, Gun violence, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, Body horror, Cannibalism, Grief, Outing, Sexual assault, Death, Dysphoria, Rape, Violence, and Transphobia
paracosim's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
nsfw, cw rape
But overall, all I can really say about this book is: dude, Fran straight up f*cking sucks.
Graphic: Blood, Death, Dysphoria, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Sexual assault, Transphobia, Violence, Cannibalism, Body horror, Gore, Murder, Outing, Sexual content, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Animal death
ramreadsagain's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.0
My rating for this honestly could have gone either way so I have decided to go down the middle with three stars. At its core it's a (not original but in quite an original setting) critique on TERFs and how their transphobia is so overpowering that they pretty much stop caring about anything else. Even the literal zombie-cis-men overrunning the planet. There is a lot of emphasis on their hypocrisy, as they allow some trans women to live as sex workers for their own gratification (in a 'turning a blind eye' kind of way but ultimately killing them too), as well as force-transitioning young men for their army (their solution to the threat of male puberty turning them into monsters). They will allow trans existence and transition under their own terms, as long as they can control the bodies exactly how they want. They consider their castrated/medically transitioned young men to be women, but fake women, because they have the right genitals, highlighting how TERFs' view of womanhood only really extends to external sex characteristics.
Another important point is the critique of TERFs' 'feminism' which never extends beyond simply a society of role reversal. They envision and want to create a world of female supremacy still within the violent, oppressive capitalist system. At several points in the book, characters note how the TERFs are 'no better than men' and 'doing to them what men did to women'.
Overall I rate this positively because of the above, as I do believe this should be an important part of queer literature.
The book has just as many downsides though which do bring my rating down. Violence for violence's sake seems to be just how the author writes but it was a bit much, and at some point you just become a bit numb to it. The characters do also seem to recover very quickly from life-threatening injuries. I really didn't like the constant sexual content, which was usually uncomfortable, graphic, and repulsive. The POVs were often difficult to work out, with characters not having a distinct voice, and it wasn't clear when POVs changed until you saw a different 'narrator name' a few paragraphs in. This meant I often had to reread sections to understand them from someone else's POV to whose I originally thought it was. The characters themselves were unlikeable, which is not an issue in and of itself but they weren't even really distinguishable from each other. The book also had a slump in the middle third that was quite difficult to push through and the book felt much longer than it is.
The book's treatment of fat people and POC made me uncomfortable. Size and race were often used as the only descriptor for a character, and Indi's extreme self hatred and the constant reference to her size (in quite inventive ways) got old very fast. The TERFs were also constantly referred to as nazis or neo nazis, which was a poor decision in my opinion. They did not demonstrate massive levels of white supremacy (unlike many irl TERFs - I understand the use of neo nazi when referring to actual twitter terfs at times) which made the descriptor just feel like a quip.
Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Cursing, Dysphoria, Medical content, Self harm, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Vomit, War, Sexism, Gore, Genocide, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, and Transphobia
Moderate: Deadnaming, Child death, Pregnancy, Excrement, Outing, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
breadwitchery's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Transphobia, Rape, Sexual content, Murder, Death, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Fatphobia, Suicide, and Ableism
Minor: Religious bigotry, Cursing, Vomit, Drug use, Deadnaming, Outing, Self harm, Pregnancy, Racism, Pedophilia, Dysphoria, and Antisemitism
bookish_ann's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
It starts with what I expected… some seriously gross and gnarly world-building involving the transformed testosterone-heavy monsters. But very very quickly the real monsters of the book are revealed. And it just never lets up, and the worst part is how much is based in reality.
This is a difficult, but very worthwhile book.
Graphic: Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Pregnancy, Rape, Self harm, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Outing, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, War, Blood, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Trafficking, Dysphoria, Gun violence, and Medical trauma
rachaeldamms's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Murder, Deadnaming, Body horror, Sexual violence, Violence, Self harm, Rape, Outing, Hate crime, Cannibalism, Blood, and Transphobia
bites_of_books's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
This is a book where the author has zero sympathy for the reader, they describe everything in raw and gory detail and hold back nothing. The atmosphere is rich in the toxic nature of the characters and also the general anxiety that it is to live in a world where various groups of people are trying to survive. We follow Fran and Beth, two trans women who are trying to survive in a world where they hunt men who have turned feral in order to harvest their organs for selling and also to acquire the hormones they need to avoid turning into these feral beasts. To top that, they also need to be wary of a group of TERFs who are building an army, trying to be the new law of the land.
I highly encourage you to read and listen to trans reviewers since a lot of the book is from that perspective. Trans experiences are not represented in literature enough and even less in horror so this book is highly valuable because it does put those experiences front and center.
The overall plot of the book jumped around a bit too much for my liking, it seemed like the first half of the book was about one thing while the second half focused on something completely different. While our main characters arcs do take precedence, there were a couple of other characters that came in and out of the story never fully solidifying their connection to the main characters.
I'd highly recommend checking all the content warnings, if you do want to venture into this book. I'd say that if you like apocalypse stories with a completely different perspective, full of gore that doesn't hold back, this might be the book for you.
Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Gore, Grief, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, War, Antisemitism, Body horror, Cannibalism, Blood, Body shaming, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Deadnaming, Death, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Outing, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Torture, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, Slavery, Transphobia, and Violence
blundershelf's review
4.0
Graphic: Body shaming, Colonisation, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Cursing, Grief, Murder, Rape, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Outing, Toxic friendship, Police brutality, Racism, Self harm, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Sexual content, Violence, War, Suicidal thoughts, Deadnaming, and Death
dezaraemd's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
The storyline was very unique and the characters were interesting. There were a lot of gory, graphic scenes that didn’t disappoint.
Overall, it was an okay read.
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Cursing, Dysphoria, Mass/school shootings, Sexual content, Transphobia, Violence, War, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, and Murder
Moderate: Deadnaming, Drug use, Outing, Classism, Grief, Medical trauma, and Vomit
Minor: Rape, Sexual violence, and Animal death