Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Manhunt

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.

Content Warnings

rachbake's review

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adventurous dark 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

5.0

Content Warnings

zarap's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

Be aware: Manhunt is very dark. But I felt very much in good hands the whole way through, in the sense that it was always very clear who the reader is meant to be rooting for. Several of the "bad" characters are sort of a dark gray in the sense that they're clearly human and don't feel like caricatures, but/and they've done/are doing a lot of really bad shit - I never got the sense (like I have occasionally from other books) that I was supposed to go "wellll they're having a hard time, it's okay," if that makes sense.

And with the caveat that I don't hold all of the identities represented in Manhunt, I thought the representation in it was/is SO well done. On a personal level, I'm so so grateful for the fat representation in this book.

just. Indi being fat and smart and surviving the apocalypse but not being able to rough it in the same way as her friends, and their choice to stick with her through it all, and the fact that she ends up in a loving relationship with someone who views her body as a normal and lovable part of her!! Just!! I cannot. I also think it's pretty clear that we're supposed to assume Indi is superfat, which I ESPECIALLY appreciate as it is so rare. I'm not sure I've ever read a book with a character as fat as Indi represented well and complexly.

I also think the trans and nonbinary rep is excellent but as a probably-cis person I don't know that I have as much to say about it, except to say that I have absolutely never read a book with SO MANY TRANS AND NONBINARY PEOPLE. SO GREAT. WHAT A VARIETY. I feel like my all caps is coming off sarcastic but it is absolutely not. And we see a wide range of the good and bad of queer relationships in a way that feels very real - like, these people are not supposed to be that far off in time from our current day queer communities, and they feel like it.

I'm still not compleeeetely sure how I feel about the ending, but generally I like it (that probably makes no sense/is not at all helpful but oh well).

TL;DR: HIGHLY recommend but definitely check out the content warnings and uh, gird your loins?

Content Warnings

machinations's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

5.0

Hell yes. Cried at the end. Much smarter people than will have more interesting words to say about Manhunt, but I think one of the biggest things that stood out to me was that this is one of the few books I’ve ever read where each sentence is beautifully, horrifically crafted; whole stories within sentences.

Content Warnings

milkybootscomix's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny 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

Fucking fantastic, visceral storytelling.

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