Reviews with content warning for Death - Tell Me I'm Worthless

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

114 reviews

cburns13's review

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dark tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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thebigemmt505's review

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dark emotional funny fast-paced

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

1.5

“Sometimes, at the end of everything, the only option you have is to make it worse.” This sentence essentially summarizes the book.

Tell Me I’m Worthless is a story about trauma and fascism…or…is it? The story follows two woman, Alice and Ila, as they navigate the trauma they faced after visiting an abandoned house. In this house, they lost their friend Hannah, and this is the only part of their memories that doesn’t conflict with one another’s. Throughout the book, each of them accuses the other of rape. After this trauma, Alice, turned to drugs, partying, and a bit of racism, and Ila became a TERF. The reader journeys through the hate and pain that fascism forces onto them and what this ultimately results in.

There’s a good, great, even, story within this mess of a book. It’s received a lot of love, so much to the point I feel as though I’m crazy for having not liked it. In fact, it’s probably one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

Before I criticize, I admire the author for tackling difficult topics and not shying away from graphic content to make a point. Trauma should not be sugar-coated and I am always happy to see transgressive horror push the boundaries. There are harrowing descriptions and great body horror that made me squirm. The chapters about the history of the house were well done; I genuinely enjoyed reading these. The story overall is fast-paced and engaging. I was never bored, much as I was annoyed. Morally grey characters are my favorite, so to see marginalized characters portrayed in an imperfect yet human way was nice. Somehow, at the end of the clusterfuck, I still found the ending really touching.

However, that’s it, and this is being generous. Tell Me I’m Worthless is a goddamn mess. Every metaphor is put under the brightest flashlight, gleaming in apparency, then shoved down the readers throat so far it comes out of their ass. The book insists on its themes more than it lets story speak to those themes. The name of the haunted house is Albion, for fucks sake. Theres a poster in Alice’s room that is supposedly a reference to Morrissey; whoever it is, it sure isn’t subtle in its depiction of celebrities’ influence on the culture war. Much as I agree with many of the sentiments the author presents, with each long political rant that is clearly just the author venting, I felt my eyes roll so far into the back of my head they got stuck there. On that note, the writing got on my very last optic nerve less than a quarter of the way through, with unbelievably bad writing and cringe-inducing dialogue, not to mention the clumsy references to internet culture. I stumbled blindly to the end of this narrative, tracing my fingers along the page in the hopes of finding some coherence, some elegance in the indentation of these words that disappointed me over and over. It’s ham-fisted, too on-the-nose, funny when it’s not meant to be and cringy when it’s trying to be funny. Tonally, it’s all over the goddamn place, much like uh, uh, England is all over the place because colonization!!! Get it!!! Do you get it reader?!?

I wanted so badly to like this. I love transgressive LGBT horror with bold themes. Perhaps this is why my aggravation is so strong. So honestly, in my opinion, avoid this one. It is Alison Rumfitt’s debut novel. Maybe, her second one is better. Maybe, every one of her writings after this will be better. Maybe, it’s just not for me. Many people loved this book, so who am I to say? I rest my case though.

Admittedly the funniest part of the book to me was the fact the only slur she shied away from was r*tard.

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kessejeen's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

ananamauvais's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious 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

4.0

Content Warnings

archaicrobin's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

3.5

3.5 but Goodreads doesn’t have half stars. Tell Me I’m Worthless is a haunted house story that is so much more than that. I went into this pretty blind with no expectations and I’m glad I did because if you pick this up looking for just a haunted house story you will be disappointed because there is so much social commentary on trans rights, misogyny, violence against minorities, and our disjointed and hateful culture in todays world.

This book had scenes that were absolutely horrifying and had so many references to other literary haunted house stories, like The Haunting of Hill House and Bluebeard’s ghost. While the horror elements were superb this book at times read like a fever dream with chapters that were strings of consciousness from the characters, including the house itself. The author intertwines the supernatural horror with the horror of bigotry, hate, and sexual violence so well that there were scenes I struggled to read.

If you’re looking for a unique horror story with diverse characters and a meld of horror and social commentary then I highly recommend Tell Me I’m Worthless.

Content Warnings

noemi_qu's review

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challenging dark tense fast-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

3.25

This is not a story you read for escapism, it was a challenge to get through most of the graphic yet realistic details. Take the content warnings very much to heart and be in a good headspace to digest it all.
The third act unfortunately felt too "eyelids forced opened a la clockwork orange" but still feels in line with what the author wanted so I'm going with a mid rating for that and the epilogue. It was a book that had something to say and it said it loud and brutal.

Content Warnings