Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

36 reviews

solenodon's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Violence, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Racism, Self harm, Slavery, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Deadnaming and Infertility

katipheria's review

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

2.25

I had a love/hate relationship with this book. The general premise of the world-building is fantastic and unique, and as much as I hate to say it, were it to become our own reality I'm sure that the world would ultimately align itself in a similar fashion

in that cis women would be more likely to fall into a TERF or at least TERF-adjacent stance, if only due to the uncertainty and fear. Even those who consider themselves to be the best possible ally are still at risk simply due to the drive for self-preservation.

It's a terrifying situation and highlights a lot of ugly truths in reality.

However, the actual story within this world just doesn't do it for me. There's a lot of unnecessary sex scenes and as someone who prefers to avoid an excess amount of that (regardless of sex/gender of participants), I found myself skimming a lot to get back to the actual plot and feeling disappointed. While I understand that an apocalyptic setting inspires depravity and these moments highlight an innate desire for comfort and companionship,

the MC Fran's general poor treatment and better-than-you attitude towards her supposed friends makes things even more unappealing.

While it's not necessarily a horrible book, it is most definitely designed to be an uncomfortable read centered around characters who don't have many redeeming qualities.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Biphobia, Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

__katdoesbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This was one of the best books I have read in a while and cannot recommend it enough! It was reminiscent of Moths by Jane Hennigan, but substantially darker. The issues tackled in the book are even more heartbreaking as, although set in a dystopian setting, they are real and current dangers. Your attachment and love for the characters just grows with every page, and it left me emotionally devastated. A true modern horror classic.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Deadnaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Homophobia, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Transphobia, Grief, Dysphoria, and Classism

sydneynorman's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Outing, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Self harm, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Minor: Deadnaming

arrr's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Wow this book is a trip! If you're mad at toxic cis men and terfs, then this book is super cathartic. If you're trans and fragile, then be warned that there is a lot of trauma here. Like. So. Much. Trauma. Queer zombie apocalypse tho, very early 2000s vibes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

danimacuk's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Murder, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Body shaming, Chronic illness, Fatphobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism

Minor: Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Drug use, Infertility, Slavery, Suicide, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

cateyeschloe's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• 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? It's complicated

4.0

“You always could have done something. 

You were just afraid to be uncomfortable.”

Right off the bat, I have to say how much I absolutely love the diverse cast of characters the author included in this book!

It was beyond refreshing to see someone mentioned who had vitiligo, someone using crutches, someone using a cane, someone with chronic pain, sex workers, a fat person, an Indigenous character, Black characters, Hispanic characters, and various other POC characters. This book does a beautiful job of showcasing just how easy and natural it is to include genuine, excellent diversity in a story. 

The pacing in the storytelling is a little sluggish at times and slow overall, but if you enjoy a dystopian story setting, this is a great choice!

This book is brutal and downright gorey at times, but I honestly think this should be on the TBR of anyone who can stomach the violence. 

The story is visceral and rings extremely close to home, so much of the content materializing in our society today like a horrifying prophecy fulfilled. The threats this book depicts are not simply dystopian, they are not simply fiction, they are very real threats that Trans people are facing every single day, especially in America. They are the signs of a genocide, of a holocaust, and it is all too real. 

I really enjoyed the cast of characters we are given to dive into this world with, and I like that they are not perfect, make mistakes, and are wholly human. 

The author does a great job of world building, and while I still have a few questions about the details of the pandemic that hit that world, I did really enjoy the stage they set for this story. 

Overall, I would absolutely recommend, but definitely suggest checking out the trigger warning list if you have any qualms!

“It is our problem… Them, the people outside… Every dyke and freak and faggot in the world is my fucking problem, and they’re yours too… 

“I know the world’s dead, but that means we get more of a say in what happens to the people left in it, not less.”

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“It wasn’t the few who’d cheered [during a TERF rally] that frightened [Beth (a trans woman)]; 

“it was the rest watching with guarded expressions, 

“not looking at those among their numbers who cried… ‘you fucking Nazis’ and ‘Fuck TERFs!’ …

“That was what scared her.

“The women who stayed silent.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Outing, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Deadnaming, Rape, and Classism

Minor: Racism, Self harm, and Pregnancy

There are really brutal execution style deaths of trans people throughout the entirety of this book.

Violence is very prevalent throughout and is sometimes very graphic, especially in regard to injuries and injury descriptions.

This is a transphobic, TERF-ruled society and every page reflects this.

The use of words like “faggot”, “tranny”, “cunt” are all used throughout as slurs.

The POV from the TERFs rails hard against trans women and often describes them as men wearing “womanface” and they repeatedly mention their belief that trans women are only men who are sexually gratified by “pretending” to be women.

A TERF also refers to a trans man character as a “traitor” and someone so in love with the patriarchy that they betrayed themselves and their sisters.

All trans people are continuously misgendered by the TERFs and sometimes they simply refer to trans people as “the things”.

There is one instance of a cis character intentionally deadnaming a trans character and it is very upsetting. There is somewhat of a warning for it, though, since the chapter title is “Deadname”.

There are many scenes depicting sex between various people. They often reference fingers or mouths or feelings but overall I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s overly graphic in its sexual content.

One of the most upsetting scenes is when a cis woman stabs another cis woman in the vagina with a knife and basically carves out not only her vagina itself but also her entire internal reproductive system. The book specifically mentions the woman’s uterus falling out through the wound. This all happens while the victim is alive and conscious.

A lot of the trans characters deal with dysphoria in some way, a lot of it exacerbated by the fact that they are in a post-apocalyptic world with limited access to anything that would be gender-affirming, even down to basic hygiene and maintenance.

Some of the trans characters deal with self-hatred or self-loathing, as well as jealousy for other trans people who they believe are naturally more passing than they are.

Fatphobia plays a distinct role with certain characters and the way they are treated by others.

Sex work is very vocally despised by the TERFs, and the sex workers that exist in the book seem to be looked down on in general, regardless of their gender identity.

The men in the book are terrifying and violent. They are cannibals and will attempt to rape any living being they encounter. They are depicted as feral, mindless, nonverbal creatures who exist only to kill, rape, and cannibalize.

Even so, the men are still not as terrifying as the TERFs.

wildeflower's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad medium-paced

• 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? No

4.25

I thought this book was really well done and very interesting. It was extremely gory, and there was one part in the end that grossed me out a lot, but overall I thought it was very impactful and seemed to me (a cis woman) to have good trans representation. It also provided a lot of social commentary on not only lgbtq rights but also classism, racism, sexism, and nationalism. Overall was definitely worth the read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Murder, Outing, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Deadnaming, Drug use, Fatphobia, Death of parent, Outing, Alcohol, and Classism

This is a book about a group of transwomen trying to survive an apocalypse where they're being hunted by literal TERFS, and so there is so much trans violence, slurs, hate crimes, etc. towards trans women / trans femmes.

flags's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-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

4.5

A brutal take on the zombie genre, body horror and sharp commentary with diverse cast of characters. Uses the conventions of the genre to create a world that takes the hateful contentions of transphobes to their logical conclusions. Every protagonist is wonderfully complex with insecurities and skills and hang ups and something at stake in the narrative. Might be hard to parse if you aren't familiar with the humour, controversies, and cultural touchstones of the lgbt and queer communities, but it's very clear about it's politics as a novel so when it talks about gender and race it's obvious what it's trying to say. There's also a frequent amount of sex scenes for various reasons and they aren't superfluous as they all say something about the characters involved. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Child death, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, Outing, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Religious bigotry

babybasil's review against another edition

tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

To say the book as a whole was bad would be incorrect. The premise was cool. It could have been so amazing if the writing wasn’t so flat. I nearly DNFd this book, but I hate quiting, so I slogged on to my detriment. 

Firstly, if the book goes more than 3 pages without mentioning sex or someone’s genitals, it was a lucky 3 pages. Like, it’s constant. Everyone is fucking each other all the time. Everyone is thinking of sex all the time. And if they’re not thinking of sex, they’re thinking about how they or the men they’re hunting have genitals. Seriously, it was alright for the first few chapters, but by the middle of the book, I was pretty fed up. We’re introduced to half the cast via sex and, sometimes, it was just flat out weird. I believe it was Fran who just straight out asked the doctor if they could fuck and I nearly threw the book across the room. 

Another issue was the story. There was no real storyline. It was just the plot of “men are monsters now and TERFs want to kill trans people” and that was it. It never felt like there was an actual story happening, just a bunch of people fucking and killing. Even the “romance” in the book felt crazy forced. Robbie saying he loved Fran in 3 days? Crazy unbelievable since we never got the two even sharing a moment besides fucking next to an unconscious Beth the same day they met. There was a point at the book where one of the main characters was working as a prostitute essentially. She seemed to have the attention of the head hancho of a bunker, but then a chapter later, her boyfriend was told she was apparently doing a bad job??? Since when?? The characterization was never pointed out and it was just such lazy writing to move the plot on. The whole book is littered with lazy writing. 

Next, I hate terfs as much as any self respecting person does, but the way the book sought to victimize the characters constantly was a bit boring. It felt like making a terf army was the easy way out, ESPECIALLY when they later just straight up accepted trans people/men if they did grunt work and got bottom surgery. It took away all the danger of their army and was just dull. 

Then there was the perspective jumping. I love books that have multiple character perspectives, especially when we get to see how their stories over lap. But when your perspective shifts 3-6 times (usually just 2-3 paragraphs per section) a CHAPTER? It gets so fucking confusing, especially when some of the sections just start “she”. One was so bad I never really figured out who it was supposed to be. Like, who am I meant to root for? What is even going on? We went from a tense moment to yet another character fucking. It was awful! Just pick a character per chapter and stick with them. Or if you do switch, at least make it make sense. 

Another thing was the nazi imagery. I get that Gretchen was trying to make an end of the world “the terfs are killing all trans women” narrative, but using the holocaust and nazi imagery made me, a Jewish women, incrediably uncomfortable. I hate when people compare things to nazis and the literal extermination of my ancestors. It’s not a necessary allegory and she pushed it SO HARD I was rolling my eyes. At nazis. Like, enough is enough.  

Not even that but Indi’s fatphobia is so unnecessary. Like, as a fat person, I don’t think about it as horribly or awfully as she does. She’s constantly going on about her rolls or how other characters are touching her “deeply buried collarbones”. It’s so bad.  It nearly tipped into racism half the time with how the book treated Indi. 

Overall, I did not like this book at all. It was such a waste of a story idea because the virus was such a cool idea. I really don’t recommend it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Deadnaming, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Incest