Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

75 reviews

essjay's review against another edition

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4.0

Damn, I wrote a whole-ass review and hit back instead of save. 

This book is A LOT. I would go from cackling one minute to having to put it down bc it was so upsetting. 

The characters are really what elevated it above just the gore and violence (and sex...so. much. sex). I know some of the people in these pages and it's cool to see their representation here. 

Really looking forward to this as a movie, it's screaming for an adaptation. 

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brynalexa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Full disclosure: I don’t generally read horror. 

This book was disgusting, perfect, challenging, and relatable, unfortunately. Not for the faint of heart but absolutely worth it if you can get through the gore 🏳️‍⚧️

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mayarosa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny inspiring reflective tense medium-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

This is one of the best horror books I've ever read. This book is emotional, funny, action packed and so unique. The characters are the most diverse and interesting I've ever seen. The writing style is great, funny and descriptive. The overall story is exciting and heartbreaking. Love love love 

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katreena's review against another edition

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2.5

I feel like the story was very loose and not well put together. Also my my genre so maybe in bias. 

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scarletranger's review against another edition

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I'll start with the things that made me want to continue to give this book a chance, long after I probably should have stopped. Felker-Martin is great at descriptions. She can paint a vivid, disturbing picture like no other, and her action sequences are top-notch.

However, that doesn't make the writing solid. Even given the unique genre, things like similar sentence structures, bland, one-dimensional characters, and an over-reliance of forcing the message down the reader's throat make this an unenjoyable experience. And as someone who identifies as non-binary, the message of "all cis-het people suck!" is just as harmful as the reverse. 

The worst offense, though, is that in the writer's anger (and it's clear that she wrote this out of anger), she somehow found a way to make TERF's hatred make sense? For context: this is a world where anyone with too much testosterone turns into a zombie that rapes, kills, and eats anyone they smell estrogen on. Trans-women have to find ways to keep getting estrogen, or else they are doomed to the same fate.

In a zombie apocalypse, it would be dangerous and stupid to harbor someone with a bite simply because you don't want to seem like a bigot. Why, then, should TERFs allow trans-women into their compounds, to live near their groups, when at any moment they could turn into the dreaded man? TERFs are some of the worst scum on earth, and yet this book makes their fears and hatred legitimate.

It doesn't help that one of the main characters (a trans-woman) immediately starts fantasizing about raping the TERFs the moment she sees them because she's so horny, all the time. When this book isn't preaching at you, it's throwing rough sex in your face with no lead-up. Just a "Wanna fuck?" and there they go! Whether that's because of the genre or poor character-building, I don't know.

This book was clearly written in anger. If the author had any joy in this project, it would have been the sadistic glee of saying "all men are murderous rapists just waiting for an excuse" and being able to make them suffer. At least, that's how it reads, and that experience sucks.

To any writers out there: when you try to force your message too hard, not only does it feel like you're talking down to the reader, it leaves you open to "proving the point" of whoever you're opposing. And that can offer dangerous ammunition. This is a book TERFs could easily hold high and say, "Look! Even they know we're right! They're dangerous and should be kept away from us." And that is one of the worst things a book can do: hurt the very people it claims to represent.

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apolloann's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

This was a hard book to read, but wow, was it great. With just enough humor sprinkled in to make the horror digestible, Manhunt left me feeling deeply unsettled. I'm newer to the horror genre, so this was a lot to handle, but the story and characters were so beautifully written that it made the discomfort worth it.  

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zombiezami's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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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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w0lfyfr3n's review against another edition

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I was intrigued by the blurb, and the idea of three trans main characters seemed so exciting, but the way these characters thought and interacted with each other felt a bit too toxic to me. Furthermore, all the characters are distractingly horny at very inappropriate moments. I wanted to go further but this style of writing was just not for me. 

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raine_forest_cafe's review against another edition

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dark

2.0


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