Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

192 reviews

strawbrey's review against another edition

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dark

5.0

perfect nasty delightful

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baileydb96's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

A really cool idea/premise but the execution fell short for me. Problems with pacing and POV. Also, the violence felt really gratuitous at times. The list of trigger warnings is a mile long.

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alex_paget's review against another edition

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I really wanted to like this book, but 50 pages in with no breaks in gore and no plot, I was done. 

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izzyvb023's review

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1.0

Only rating 1 star so I don’t get roped in with the TERFs review bombing this because of the trans characters. This book isn’t bad because of trans people. It’s bad because it’s bad. 

What I wanted from this book: badass trans women with cross bows fighting their way through a zombie apocalypse.

What I got from this book: weird rapey vibes, thinly veiled misogyny, and terrible writing 

I am a big stickler for finishing things I start, but I had to DNF after 5 chapters. I simply could not keep reading. God, I wanted to like “Manhunt” so badly. I love horror! I love queer protagonists! I am obsessed with the cover design! I was SO excited to finally crack this one open. The disappointment was terrible. 

As others have correctly pointed out, every page is either a depiction of violence, sex, or violent sex. I know the author herself is trans, but tbh I would not be shocked if someone told me the book was actually ghost written by a TERF to make it seem like all trans people are overly sexual and threatening. It felt like the author just added the word “rape” in every couple of pages just to be edgy. There was no need for all that.

I think the plague setting had some really cool potential and I was excited to see a depiction of queer and gender non confirming people navigating a post apocalyptic world. However, the fact that the plague simply turns all men into rabid raping monsters was a little surprising. This is especially strange because the main characters are trans women-meaning that if they don’t take enough estrogen, they will revert back to men and thus turn into the viscous raping creatures. I understand that this is the plot; however it doesn’t make a great premise for what is supposed to be a good depiction of trans people. TBH this premise almost makes it seem like the author wants us to believe that trans women aren’t real women and they are going to maim and rape “”real”” women if given the chance. I think the setting and the whole plague in general could have been handled WAY better in a better at that actually recognizes the characters autonomy and womanhood. 

If it were just the terrible premises, I probably could have finished the book if I wanted. However, the writing was just awful! Every sentence had about 3-4 unnecessary adjectives, making each page just convoluted and unreadable. It felt as if the author thought she was writing poetry. Some of the paragraphs would have actually made beautiful poems if extracted from the book. Unfortunately, they were not poems in a poetry book: they were terrible sentences strung together in a poorly written novel. 

With the writing + the poor representation, i just couldn’t bring myself to finish this book. I’m sorry “Manhunt” — I had such high hopes for you. 


*** editing to add that apparently the author said that she believes “there should be more rape in horror.” Yeah this confirms my suspicion that she was just putting rape in the book for shits and giggles. What a deranged thing to think.

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jessyc's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Booo corny tomato tomato!!!

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dwhiting's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny 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


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raine_forest_cafe's review against another edition

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dark

2.0


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peachylite's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

3.75


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rachaelwho's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Good! Weird! A LOT more graphic sex and less horror than I expected. Could've done with like 1 or 2 fewer plotlines to make more sense of the remaining ones; I thought it was just about over when I was roughly 65% of the way through, and maybe it should've been two books. The biggest mark against this one for me was the ways in which nonwhite characters' race was an afterthought in a way that it was obvious to me that the author was not aware of. There was a lot of mentioning that someone was Black but never mentioning that someone was white that is like, okay, so you are trying to tell me that this book is for white people? Got it. It really stuck out and rubbed me wrong in a story that was really reaching for diversity and coming up white. I wonder if they had sensitivity readers, maybe publishers don't want to spend time & money on that for debut authors. Anyway, it's a good read if you can get past that, and alllll the trigger warnings for women & queer people of all genders. Very cinematic, some interesting perspectives.

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frank_the_they's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny 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

An excellent concept and exploration of TERF culture in an “apocolyptic” future. Was slow to get into, but then took me for a ride.  Writing good enough to enjoy and not take away. Mostly lots of starts for content

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