Reviews

Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

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niedwns_'s review

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mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.0

littlespookysmut's review

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For the first time, I don’t think I can properly give this a rating. I almost think this book wasn’t meant for me to understand? I’m a cis woman in the US. This book was definitely about trans people, terfs, antisemitism, and facism in the UK. Parts of this book were definitely relatable cause the world is falling apart in the us too but a lot of it was not relatable to me. Most of this book was very difficult to read cause of what I said above. It’s not really about the haunted house. It was very well written but I’m not sure if I completely understood it.

perpetuallygreads's review

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challenging dark emotional tense 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

2.75

piercer43's review against another edition

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dark funny medium-paced

3.5

woodslesbian's review

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-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

4.0

I say this as a compliment: this book made me feel ill! It made me feel really bad, and I think that means it's an incredibly effective work of horror, especially one that handles such dark themes as this. If you're interested in reading this book, I recommend not only checking trigger warnings but knowing that the subjects listed will be VERY present and visceral and unpleasant to read. This is not a book for everybody, and there were many parts of it that made me deeply uncomfortable, but I believe this was a very intentional choice on Rumfitt's part, and one that really works for both the horror and the social commentary. The main characters are deeply human and VERY flawed, and I think the text did a good job of examining how those flaws happened (and how people in general are drawn in to reactionary ideology) without excusing them. I think the horror elements didn't always land for me--overall this book was less overtly scary and, again, mostly just unpleasant and sickening. This was still effective horror in my view, but also it definitely could've had more tense moments. It's not especially subtle in its themes and messaging by any means, which wasn't a problem for me, but both the themes and the horror were not the most subtle. I'll probably read some of Alison Rumfitt's other works eventually, but I know I'll need to be very braced emotionally for them.