Reviews with content warning for Racism - Manhunt

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

43 reviews

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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erikathered's review

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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.

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breadwitchery's review against another edition

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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

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babybasil's review against another edition

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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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snowydaze's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

1.0

This book was pitched to me as a trans horror novel that dealt with TURFs and had great characters. Unfortunately, I found this book to be very gruesome and honestly I hated it. There was a weird sub-plot with one of the TURF characters that tried to redeem her which really wasn't wanted or needed. The plot was difficult to follow at times and there was too much sex in places where it was not needed. The book was also very confusing on its stance surrounding trans people as the main characters were obsessed with passing and in general there was a weird plot about trans people being one missed dose away from being men. That's without getting into the trigger warnings and issues with fatphobia and racism that are passively mentioned but not corrected at all. It was a strange book that I barley managed to finish.

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js_reading_journal's review

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dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I nearly DNF’d this book, but it was for a book club, it had been MY pick for the book club, and I just kept reminding myself that it was less than 300 pages.

The writing felt blah and heavy handed. I couldn’t have told you which character of the main characters was which for the first half of the book. The plot felt half assed and like the ‘TERFs are bad message’ was the only thing important to the author.

On the TERF commentary: why the hell would terfs be okay with then making their own castrated non-men. Like towards the middle to end of the book they are like ‘hey by the way you can choose to not be a man and join us as our low level grunts if you want. You still won’t be a women but that’s fine’ when they are simultaneously murdering trans people for being trans?? Did not understand that whole plot point. Also felt like the TERF Ramona was the only one with an actual character arc, and I’m sorry but you can’t make me like a TERF so idk why you even would have tried.

THEN the trans commentary felt just plain ol transphobic. Like all the trans characters personalities and modulations revolved around sex and being able to pass. And that’s just not what life is for all trans people. Passing isn’t the end all be all for a lot of trans people. THEN the heavy implications that estrogen is the ONLY thing keeping trans women from being rapid horrendous men??? Are you kidding me? I get that this is a end of the world apocalypse premise but as ‘social commentary’ terrible. This felt like a ‘guide to rational your transphobia’

THEN we have the overt fat phobia. That all the characters that are described as fat are also described as disgusting and hating themselves. Literally what the f*ck.

And to top it all of there’s just a dash of racism. The oh I didn’t realize this POC could be more than a dormouse. And - im not going back in to find it - but at one point the Screw people were like ‘well we gave you the columbian’ - I don’t remember if this was in reference to the Dr needing more help or someone to experiment on. It was unclear but bad regardless.

Also — Ramona referred to Feather as being 16 at one point in the book and like that’s pedophilia. Ramona is described as being in her 20s.

Lastly, none of the characters felt unrelatable. The ‘morally grey-ness’ of characters was over shadowed by the 1 dimensional writing and lack of character background or motivation (besides just living to the next day).

This premise could have really been amazing. But alas.

If you want a horror apocalypse book with trans rep read Hell Followed With Us.

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