Reviews with content warning for Classism - Manhunt

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

32 reviews

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.

Content Warnings

danimacuk's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

Content Warnings

cateyeschloe's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.”

“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.”

Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Deadnaming, Rape, and Classism

Minor: Racism, Pregnancy, and Self harm

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

Go to review page

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!

Content Warnings

flags's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings

babybasil's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings

dezaraemd's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad fast-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? Yes

3.25

The structure of the writing was chaotic. At times I wasn’t sure which character I was reading about. The timeline is also unclear.

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.

Content Warnings

rhythmreads's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.25

So I had heard quite a bit about this book. And had recently read Hell Followed With Us, and I wanted a horror/gore read for October. So I decided to pick up Manhunt. I wanted gore, I wanted disgust, I wanted the same feelings I got from HFWU. I don’t think this is the book for that, at least it wasn’t for me.

Let me preface that as a trans person I love reading trans characters and the concept was incredibly interesting. I semi knew what I was getting into. I’d heard about this book from multiple people so I knew there was some heavy stuff in here. I knew it followed 2 trans women, a trans man, and a TERF. I knew there would be a lot of TERF shit and HOLYSHIT was there. I also knew rape was a theme and I’m glad I knew beforehand.

This is a heavy fucking book. I know it’s a commentary on TERFs and their ideologies and where they could lead in a fucked up world and that didn’t make it less fucked up. But it is a heavy fucking book and I would not recommend this to many or maybe any people if I’m being honest.

I did enjoy the book. There were funny quips and one liners, the main characters beside Ramona, had flaws but you could obviously tell were fleshed out people who were trying to live in an apocalypse and deal with their own shit along the way.

The writing was raw in its depictions of trans dysphoria and issues and a lot of trans shit. And it was an interesting look at all of it. And I enjoyed seeing into their thoughts and actions.

Ramona’s POV always pissed me off which it was supposed to I’m sure. She was the odd one out. The one obviously in the wrong and knowing it, and still making all those wrong decisions. She said she was in love and let that lover die just because. There were so many times she could have stood up, times so many people could have stood up and ended it, but they didn’t. From their safety they ignored the cries and pain of those that weren’t them and it screams of a privilege to not have to think. To be able to step away and live quietly while letting things happen because “I can’t do anything anyway.” It’s definitely a commentary on activism and it was really interesting to read, but I still didn’t sympathize.

There was a good amount in this book that was nice to read and interesting, but there was also a lot we probably could have done without. Authors can write what they want and if this is the story you want to write that’s fine, I will say though, that for a book that was only 293 pages, it didn’t need so many smut scenes. There were FIFTEEN. I annotated my book and let me tell you I love t4t smut scenes, it’s a great thing and I love to read smut in my books, but it was just SO much. By the end I was annoyed whenever a new one came up. And I wanted to be happy for the characters but it’s an apocalypse and they were so goddamn horny. It was exhausting by the end of the book. I get trying to showcase trans people and how normal it is for them to exist outside of surgeries but still, it was a lot.

And arguably I don’t think the rape scene needed to happen. It didn’t add much to the plot other than trauma to Beth and very little would have changed other than the disgust at it happening. I don’t feel it was necessary but again, traumatize your characters how you want it just felt really unnecessary to me. As we’d already been told about the horrible things the men were doing, we didn’t need front row seats, but if that was important to Beth’s character, it’s fine I just didn’t feel like it was there for anything but horror and gore. But I digress.

Teach was the head TERF and her beliefs and ideologies were horrendous. A lot of the TERFs in this book had realized after the virus had spread and men were now monsters that someone else could take over that monster slot and have the power to hurt others. I hated every time Teach would say something or monologue because it was always about how disgusting men were and the horrible things they were apparently programmed to do, while the TERFs were doing the exact same things to the trans people of the book. The horrible things they did were a power trip for most of the TERFs and it really stuck it that this is where these women wanted to be. They loved having a power they had craved before the men had turned and they just used it to hurt others because they could.

I won’t say this is a horrible book or story. There were parts I enjoyed and parts I absolutely hated. Parts that made me disgusted and parts that made me happy, but I don’t know if I’d recommend this book to anyone. It’s an interesting commentary and I won’t knock people from reading it, and I know most people who would want to, would even pick up this book, would be ready for all the shit in it.

It’s just a lot in so few pages and I’m not sure how else I’m supposed to feel about it. I wanted to love it, I wanted something different from this and it wasn’t the worst book I’ve ever read and I actually finished it. It’s a horror book, and it fits its genre. It just wasn’t what I wanted it to be and there was just so much that was probably there to pad the page number, and I really wished people would have talked about their feelings and relationships instead of just having sex. There’s so much more to a relationship, even in an apocalypse then sex.

This wasn’t a fave of mine and I don’t know if I’d ever reread it, I don’t regret giving it a chance but I’d definitely not recommend unless someone really liked horror novels. If you want to pick this book up, go ahead, and try and enjoy and connect with the characters but do be mindful of the content warnings and if you don’t think you could stomach it or that it would be worth it, definitely pass this one up.

Content Warnings