Reviews tagging 'Outing'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

98 reviews

nouveau's review

emotional sad tense medium-paced

• 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Dysphoria, Body horror, War, Suicidal thoughts, Medical trauma, Blood, Transphobia, Violence, Sexual content, Outing, Murder, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, Grief, Gore, Death, and Cursing

Moderate: Vomit

crookedspines's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• 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

5.0

perhaps the best book I’ve read in the last decade, and definitely one of the best I’ve ever read

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Outing, Murder, Hate crime, Body horror, Blood, Sexual violence, Medical trauma, Homophobia, Fatphobia, Transphobia, Death, Physical abuse, and Body shaming

Moderate: Abortion, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Animal cruelty

This is a pro-trans book that does not look away from or sanitize what transphobia looks like. This is a post-apocalyptic zombie-hunting type story and the gore is very explicit. There is a fat character who has a lot of self-hating feelings about her body and it is described by others with this same bite on occasion. As someone who is often triggered by most of this, I feel like because it was wrapped up in this intense world, I could trudge through it. But if you are actively struggling with body image, gender dysphoria, dysmorphia, or other similar concerns or are very very squeamish, this is definitely not the book for you.

kelshef's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I thought this book would be a fun, misandrist adventure with a diverse cast of characters. I found it to be a much deeper, more thought-provoking work than I expected.

The beautifully descriptive, vividly gory, sensual writing in this book allows the reader to really inhabit the bodies of the main characters in a way that is rare in literature. This was especially enlightening for me, a cis, straight woman feeling a connection to  and understanding of the trans experience of the characters that I’ve never felt before. 

I think the characters and their interiority far outshine their plot and environment of this book. The first third of the book deliberately grounds us in the two protagonists’ experience of their world, but the latter two thirds, where the majority of the plot occurs, felt rushed to me. I understand that what the characters were experiencing was frantic and fast-paced, but I found myself taken out of the story by wondering what the hell was going on and why it was happening. 

I do think the very end of the book did the characters justice, and wrapped up the story with a feeling of some hope that the survivors will be able to find a way to live a life of integrity and truth, at least for awhile.

While the book is gross (in a great way) and extremely violent, I didn’t feel a sense of dread or horror until one of the final scenes of the book. This isn’t the type of horror to leave you with nightmares, it’s the type that will leave you identifying the horror of the world that we live in today, and recognizing that some of us might actually have a better, more respected life in a (more, different) dystopian hellscape.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, Transphobia, Body horror, Blood, Deadnaming, Death, Dysphoria, Gore, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual content, Gun violence, Outing, Rape, Self harm, and Toxic friendship

negcol's review

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Transphobia, Medical trauma, and Gore

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Deadnaming, Trafficking, Torture, Outing, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

Minor: Vomit

larseneiii's review

dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Body horror, Cannibalism, Death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, War, Blood, Rape, Cursing, Gore, and Transphobia

Moderate: Deadnaming, Outing, Vomit, and Sexual assault

ruthlessreads's review

This is one of the worst books I've ever read. It was absolutely unreadable, on multiple levels.

The writing was extremely poor. So much so that it was incredibly difficult to tell whose viewpoint we were in at any given point. The characters relied very heavily on stereotypes & were generally one dimensional. The one character that was given more dimension was consistently treated poorly & discussed negatively even by people that she was supposed to be close with. The body horror was near constant & added nothing to the plot. Every single sexual scene was written to shock & disgust not just the reader but also to make the characters feel shame & disgust with themselves & people like them. Not only that but the aftermath of the sexual encounters left either one or both characters involved feeling violated in some way. Again, this book relies on and heavily perpetuates negative stereotypes about trans people specifically and the LGBTQ+ community & women in general. (I came across this while writing this review but this is the same author who proudly proclaimed on Twitter "I'm a woman, and a professional author, and I've never written anything without at least one rape scene in it." which she defends by saying that not writing these scenes in media is pretending it it doesn't exist in real life. So, that sounds like a lot of internalized misogyny to me & it really comes across in her writing.) This book was marketed as a narrative that would turn the gender plague trope on its head but I don't believe that the author succeeded in subverting a single thing about it. Beyond that, the writing was just bad. It's the literary equivalent of movies like Human Centipede which have no cinematic value and only want to shock, disgust, and upset the viewer. The authors desire to upset the reader overwhelms anything else she might have to say about...anything. As such, it seems that plotting was planned around specifically horrible things that the author wanted to describe but that don't actually make any sense in respect to the narrative. 

I, frankly, can't believe this book was published. It's bad from a technical standpoint. The writing, pacing, plotting, and character development are all over the place. The horror serves no purpose to the plot & the author seems to be seeking up upset, overwhelm, or disgust the reader. But's it's also bad from the standpoint that it relies on & perpetuates negative stereotypes about marginalized communities that already suffer a lot of harm & hate. I think we can do better in 2022. 

Please check the content warning. I tried to tag literally everything I could for readers who might struggle with the graphic nature of the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Body shaming, Gore, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Body horror, Chronic illness, Classism, Deadnaming, Grief, Gun violence, Sexual content, Violence, War, Cannibalism, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Outing, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual harassment, Torture, Trafficking, Fatphobia, Transphobia, Medical content, Misogyny, and Sexism

Moderate: Alcohol, Pregnancy, Cursing, and Dysphoria

bonemade's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny fast-paced

• 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Gun violence, Transphobia, Cursing, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, and Gore

Moderate: Dysphoria, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Blood, Classism, and Deadnaming

Minor: Self harm, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, and Outing

yellowvans's review

challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Cursing, Fatphobia, Death, Dysphoria, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Outing, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Rape, Violence, Sexual violence, and Transphobia

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Deadnaming, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture

Minor: Animal death and Death of parent

grimmarray's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

A strong and harsh look at a world where women rule and how feminism has evolved in the best and worst ways. The biggest focus being on trans and gender non-conforming people is fantastic and the horror aspects of zombies are given a new twist, and as usual, the real monsters aren't always the zombies. There is a lot of grey morality, but it's written well in my opinion, each conflict bringing some new piece to the main plot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Dysphoria, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Gore, Transphobia, Violence, Rape, Homophobia, and Eating disorder

Moderate: Toxic friendship, Outing, Misogyny, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Murder, Hate crime, Car accident, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, and Medical content

madisonhh666's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Body shaming, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Deadnaming, Physical abuse, Genocide, Transphobia, Vomit, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Sexual content, Bullying, Blood, Grief, Body horror, Cursing, Misogyny, Rape, Medical trauma, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Torture, Mental illness, Violence, War, Death, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Murder, and Medical content