Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Manhunt

Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

31 reviews

anncarve's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

1.75

I understand the deep dark place this book came from, but to not even end it on a hopeful note felt like a betrayal.

Content Warnings

samants's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

2.0

A collection of thoughts:

It felt strangely bio-essentialist for a book with so many trans characters; testosterone is bad, estrogen is good.
Weird descriptions of fatness.
This book oozed self-loathing. I can tell that the author is trans from the writing, and the unfortunate thing is that it really comes out in the self-hatred experienced by the trans characters, which is so detailed and thorough that it feels intensely personal. I suspect that the author is also fat and self-loathing, but I haven't really looked her up.
Burying the lede here: This book is VERY gory, graphic, and honestly gross. Like, the content warnings are very real. It makes it hard to read at times and is worse at the beginning.
The anger in it is very real and raw.
The discussions and topics tackled in the book feel very online, as in I'm pretty sure it's what circulates on trans twitter. I know it's post-apocalyptic, but it seems so implausible and nihilistic that it crosses into being a panicked nightmare, reeking of fear, rather than a social commentary in the way dystopian novels usually are. It doesn't feel realistic but it does feel like what social media paints as a realistic scenario.
Follow-up to the previous point: maybe this is how horror books usually are, but I felt that there was no hope for this society, which is unusual for a dystopian novel. The people seem fractured and it really seems like the end of the world. Pretty bleak. Full credit to the author for painting such a dark picture.
Not only was there way too much sex in this book (aren't you people tired?) but the sex itself was also graphic and at times violent.
This book is littered with expletives. So many. It's a little tiring.
This book definitely makes you think.
Lastly: This book does Baltimore and Maryland DIRTY. I don't think Baltimore deserved the treatment it got in this book. Baltimore doesn't need any more insults. It's a lovely city and already deserves more than it gets in the media. If anything, Boston is more puritanical. Just saying.

I'm just not a horror person, let alone the kind of person who enjoys stomach-turning gore.

Content Warnings

audrilou's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad tense 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

I adore this book. The ending had me heaving big heavy sobs for minutes. Its a dark dark read, especially if you are trans. Because of that closeness, I felt so much more.

Content Warnings

vulgarboy's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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? It's complicated

1.25

In a weird turn of events, this is now the worst book that I have ever read. I knew I was getting into something atypical, something radical, but this was a 300 page dumpster fire. This wasn't really horror, either. Sure there was some gore, but most of the parts meant to be tense or scary felt uninteresting or poorly executed. Aside from that, this felt like Misandry: The Book while also perpetuating the fetishization of non-cis folks. The one trans masc lead was only there for sex and basically nothing else. The personality the two trans femme characters have is completely absen after the first maybe 100-150 pages, one of which is reduced to little more than someone trying to get laid. Even the sex scenes weren't that great, often falling into again a weird fetishization of non-cis bodies or just straight up being bad. Don't even get me started on the one Indian character being called "Indi." I wish I was joking. The most compelling character was a TERF, in a book that is supposed to be so anti-TERF to the point it became "controversial" for killing JKR in the most boring way possible. This was a genuine atrocity masquerading as phenomenal story-telling with an interesting premise. It fell short in so many ways. Given the fact that it's written by a horny, terminally online author who claims there needs to be more sexual assault in the media (????), I'm MORE disgusted thanI originally thought possible. The only reason I gave this any stars at all was for the single compelling character who was- again- a TERF. Absolute garbage and waste of my time.

Content Warnings

kaschaller's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional tense 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

5.0

Content Warnings

childofmongreldogs's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional tense medium-paced

4.0

To start, this has a helluva lot of triggers to keep in mind. This book would 100% be an x-rated movie. There's a metric shit ton of blood, gore, curses, death, torture, sex, sexual assault etc along with things like dismemberment and just gross things in general. This is a read at your own risk kind of book.

This wasn't a book that I loved but the concept was really interesting and the writing was good. I sincerely don't really have much to complain about it either which is a nice change from a lot of the books I've been reading lately.

Basic concept is that the end of the world happens. This is definitely an interesting take on the idea of gendered diseases/pandemics that we've seen in other forms of media. This novel just takes into consideration the existence of trans people. Men (or, rather, anyone who has a significant amount of testosterone) ends up turning into a monster.

Honestly, I'm not one for excessive gore. I think my only exception to this would be Stephen Graham Jones but I might make another exception for Felker-Martin. This novel is exceptionally gory and pretty gross. Yet, she does a great job of selling us these characters, even the villainess of the story with this back drop of violence and dirt. I'll say here that Beth absolutely devastated me on so many levels.

If I had all day or the inclination to, I'd go point by point on some of the most unfair and ridiculous arguments made about this book being bad. Instead, I'll save myself the energy and just that I found a lot of other reviews to be absolutely ridiculous. Like, being mad about men being portrayed as blood thirsty monsters. Sorry, that's the story? There's a male main character who obviously isn't a monster lol. Finally, on this, while there is a lot of sex, it's really brief and not really that crazy. I'm surprised anyone has mentioned this when people were screwing and fucking in the Walking Dead, the Last of Us, Dawn of the Dead, literally any apocalyptic media has people getting down and dirty. I know for a fact some of you are reading erotica L M A O. Why are you mad at this one?

I felt that the narrative was actually really kind to the antagonists as well which was a genuine surprise to me considering how up in arms people got over this. Spoiler: the main antagonists beyond the blood thirsty monsters/zombies are called TERFs and they go around as a large group and route out those who aren't "XX" chromosomed. I will say that the reason this doesn't get a five stars for me is because of how after school special the author seemed at times about this point. I'd actually go so far as to say that the novel went too far in siding with the antagonists, even. Though, I suppose that fairness also lends some credibility and realism to their motivations.

Final sidenote that I finished the last half of this novel as an ebook instead of audio. There was nothing wrong with Katherina Pucciariello (the narrator) but this was definitely not the kind of book I wanted to listen to while in the car or washing dishes. She did a good job of differentiating the voices of the characters too. Just not my cup of tea.

Content Warnings

vexedfox's review

Go to review page

challenging dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book was impossible to put down in a grabbing an electric fence sort of way. The world-building was superb and the characters were heart-breaking. This was hard to get through but I'm glad I did.

Content Warnings

erikathered's review

Go to review page

dark sad tense 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? Yes

4.5

This novel may not appeal to everyone as it's written from a very particular perspective and for a very particular audience. But if you're within that audience, if you're interested in dark, tense fiction that explores trans experience through a new lens, you'll love this book.

Content Warnings

breadwitchery's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark medium-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? Yes

3.5

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

More...