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rachbake'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
5.0
Graphic: Sexual violence, Blood, Gore, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Deadnaming, Violence, Medical trauma, Fatphobia, Child death, Confinement, Medical content, Sexual content, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Rape, Death, Transphobia, Body shaming, Body horror, Ableism, and Dysphoria
lakecryptid's review against another edition
- 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
4.75
The level of violence in this book is a lot, and the constant peril that the trans characters are in, in addition to the persistent self hatred and interpersonal vitriol, is often overwhelming. It was heartbreaking to read about Beth and Fran's fraught relationship, and seeing the former woman express such beautiful compassion and love, and be met with such deep rejection and loneliness, even from her close friend, was crushing, if accurate. It's sad that the level of trans misogyny and transphobia feels so believable and true to the current moment. Fran's character is understandably grating a lot of the time, and at times it feels like she and Beth almost veer into stereotypes, but not quite. The complex internal narratives and contradictions of the characters save them from being one-note, or simple didactic archetypes to illustrate a political point. I appreciated that in the context of Fran,
By far the most difficult sections of the book to read were the passages from the POV of
I recently finished the book, and upon reflecting more on the story, something I noticed was how all violence, including sexual violence, is presented in the book. The characters are always making pragmatic and strategic decisions about how much violence they can endure, at what cost, and when they can afford to fight back. This kind of grim pragmatism in perspective feels jarring and gross to read, and it should. It's the honest reflection of a bunch of people living through nonstop trauma, in which there often is no "safe" choice, and the only ways the characters can exercise control is by trying as hard as they can to pick how and when they can resist, and when they have to dissociate to live and fight another day. I've read criticisms that the violence and sex in the book is often described in a uniformly graphic style, regardless of the context. I can see that as a valid criticism, since it could be seen as not making a distinction, for example, between consensual sex and sexual violence, or violence and sex at all. In my view, that distinction is still there, but the stylistic unity across scenes shows that in the minds of the characters, the horrible violence they have endured never really leaves their minds, or bodies. It haunts them as they run, as they fight, as they hold their loved ones and are re-traumatized by their enemies. It's gruesome and crushing to read, but in my mind, those are some of the most realistic and affecting parts of the story that really make an impact about the type of world the characters are living in, and what types of perspectives they have been forced to abandon through trauma.
Graphic: Murder, Child death, Outing, Pedophilia, Blood, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Transphobia, Cannibalism, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Body horror, Fatphobia, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Medical content, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture
nightmare_maven's review
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Transphobia, Gore, and Rape
Moderate: Vomit, Animal death, and Fatphobia
Minor: Self harm, Deadnaming, and Child death
kylajaynebooks's review
- 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
This read like a movie - it was brutal, nasty, horrifying, real, depressing, funny, reflective, sarcastic and I loved it so much.
It has so much to say and really makes you question feminism and how it absolutely does not always include everyone. It explores gender identity, mental illness, toxic relationships, eugenics, sex work, genocide and dictatorships
Just wow this was a gory disgusting sexy masterpiece
Graphic: Addiction, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Fatphobia, Grief, Hate crime, Infertility, Mass/school shootings, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Ableism, Child death, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Eating disorder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexism, Trafficking, Violence, Vomit, War, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Death, Genocide, Abortion, Cursing, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Rape, Religious bigotry, and Transphobia
atenderwitch's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, War, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Hate crime, Homophobia, Genocide, Excrement, Cannibalism, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Child death, Toxic relationship, Cursing, Confinement, Body shaming, Blood, Rape, Deadnaming, Transphobia, Trafficking, Death, Dysphoria, Sexual content, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Outing, Gore, Infertility, Torture, Fatphobia, Classism, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Murder, Grief, and Eating disorder
ollie_again's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
It wasn't the few who'd cheered that frightened her; it was the rest, watching with guarded expressions, not looking at those among their number who cried Go back to Maryland, you fucking Nazis and Fuck TERFs! The women who looked at each other in a way Beth didn't understand, a way sealed forever with the cold and rigid bounds of cisness but which nonetheless told her without room for doubt that they couldn't leave too soon.
That was what scared her.
The women who stayed silent.
Incredibly campy and grotesque. I don't read much horror and even less of gore, I somehow couldn't keep my hands off of this book though. Pretty much everything bad and worse happens and with each chapter, I couldn't believe there would be more to come. And there was.
When I picked this up I thought I knew what I'm going to get, TERFs are the main villains and our main characters are trans folks. I thought I knew what the book will do. Well... not really, you get all the obvious with it: the violence against trans people, body dysmorphia, rampant verbal attacks and TERF rhetoric. But what the author managed to do with all these things, how fucked up it all really gets... in all directions, my brain couldn't keep up. The legacy of Mary Shelley lives on and the question of who is the real monster has always the very same answer. Layers upon layers of proof that people, with the same ideologies, opinions like those living and breathing among us in real life, are much more terrifying than anything else. Everything's all-to-familiar.
And at the same time as the cover (which is absolute perfection) suggests this book is also incredibly funny. Not appropriate humour maybe, but funny nevertheless. Chuckle through the pain.
Graphic: Dysphoria, Gore, Medical content, Transphobia, Rape, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual violence, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Fatphobia, and Vomit
Minor: Child abuse, Child death, and Pedophilia
kingweirdo'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
5.0
but
This is one of the most touching, heartbreaking, brutal books I've ever read. I was so in love these characters, and even sickly attached to the villain narrator. Every chapter held a gut-punch, whether it was a horrible death, or act of violence, or a transphobic microaggression, or just the horrible things that the characters said to themselves while surviving the actual end of the civilized world.
And while this book is PACKED with blood and guts, bullets and knives, and breathtaking fights to the death, the world is so smartly built and the premise is SO wrought with symbolism. The entire conceit establishes a Binary sex problem and then immediately starts dismantling it and showing a dozen gaps in that easy essentialism. It asks us horrifying questions about identity and community, it leaves no population unscrutinized, it reminds us of how much there is to fear from our fellow humans, and it also gives us such remarkable tenderness.
I wept. I usually hate series, but I'm honestly begging the author to extend this universe and give us more.
Graphic: Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Dysphoria, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical content, Murder, Blood, Deadnaming, Death, Torture, Toxic friendship, Violence, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, and War
Moderate: Animal death, Cancer, Classism, Drug use, Eating disorder, Genocide, Grief, Medical trauma, Emotional abuse, Rape, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Cursing, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Slavery, Suicide, Alcohol, Miscarriage, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, and Terminal illness
Minor: Colonisation, Child death, Self harm, and Sexual harassment
criticalgayze's review against another edition
- 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
Holy heck. As you can see from the litany of "trigger warnings" appended to this review (on Storygraph, if viewing on another platform), this book is a minefield of topics. Felker-Martin is most definitely not aiming for inclusion in your local right-wing library.
If you read last year's bestselling and highly lauded Detransition Baby, then you have already been in conversation with many of the ideas presented here. In fact, Felker-Martin both quotes and credits the author, Torrey Peters, within the work. Like Detransition, Baby, Manhunt is actively wrestling with both how trans people, specifically trans women, are socialized amongst each other and among the broader (specifically female-identifying) population.
By mutating all peoples producing high, masculine-assigning levels of testosterone, Felker-Martin is able to grapple almost exclusively with how trans women, and their allies to a lesser extent, are treated by the femme-assigned-and-identifying by allowing the latter group to have reason to make their discomfort and disdain explicit. As these trans women could be biologically betrayed into regressing to masc-presentation levels of testosterone, which would force them to succumb to the novel's male-mutating pandemic. With this excuse, femme-assigned-and-identifying women seeking gender purity and previously denied power structures are able to finally dissociate from tacit allyship in favor of a sex-based caste system.
This book is shamelessly targeted. Felker-Martin repeatedly calls out known TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) J.K. Rowling, who has on multiple occasions sought to delineate trans women from biological women, like herself. Because of this pointed critique, this book will face its share of intense backlash and vitriol from those who claim themselves allies (or those who purposefully do not) yet want to exclusively own their biological title as "woman" in an attempt to win the "oppression olympics."
Consider this my Surgeon General's book stamp: Approach with caution, but approach.
Quotes:
Pussy certified all-natural by the Daughters of the Witches You Couldn’t Burn or whatever Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival bullshit the TERFocracy in Maryland bowed down to. (Location 82)
She always scarred like that, as though her body had known ahead of time that it was going to be torn open. As though it were prepared for mutilation. (Location 603)
“Oh, honey.” Indi settled deeper into the chair, shifting back and forth inside its confines. “The world is over. Who cares how fast you go?” (Location 1061)
She’d been like that for as long as Fran had known her, as meticulous about her clothes, her hair, her makeup as she was careless about her house, as though she were a topiary: not quite static, but reliant on the illusion of it. (Location 1321)
She had a whole drawer full of different smiles for when she needed them. (Location 1386)
Fran could see the blank “Sex” boxes on the intake form, twin islands all-encompassing in a sea of ephemera. How many times had she dithered in the blank quarter inch between them? (Location 1560)
“I’m trans. I’ve had first dates with more crying than that.” (Location 1998)
It’s just a way to keep from being drawn and quartered by the Knights of J. K. Rowling. (Location 2217)
“Them, the people outside, the people in Boston and Concord and Worcester. Every dyke and freak and faggot in the world is my fucking problem, and they’re yours too, Fran." (Location 2599)
Community is when you never let go of each other. Not even after you’re gone. (Location 3965)
Graphic: Dysphoria, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Alcohol, Body shaming, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Rape, Blood, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Medical content, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Infertility, Kidnapping, Addiction, Animal death, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Child death, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and War
Minor: Deadnaming, Death of parent, Self harm, and Trafficking
thereserose's review
- 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
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Deadnaming, Death, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Medical trauma, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Rape, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Suicide, Transphobia, Violence, Misogyny, and Child death