Reviews with content warning for Panic attacks/disorders - Tell Me I'm Worthless

Very bingeable yet graphic read. It’s complex and in your face about what what it aims to be. Some portions get a bit on the rambling side of things and the message gets lost.

Content Warnings

hobbithopeful's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

The most horrifying and disgusting book I have ever read.
Also one of the most excellent.
Will give you nightmares and make you nauseous.
Absolutely brilliant book about trauma, Fascism, and the Trans experience.

Content Warnings

gagereadsstuff's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

3.5

This book is not for the faint-hearted. It's a story of a racist, xenophobic, hateful house representing the racist, xenophobic, hateful history of a country with racist, xenophobic, hateful people as the main characters. And FUCK, it does mess you up.

Content Warnings

sarah984's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

This book was written by someone who was terminally online during a pandemic lockdown and unfortunately it shows. Parts of it are spooky and insightful but most of it is shadow boxing with imaginary twitter opponents which is both uninteresting and already dated.

Also personally I don't like "ambiguous" rape stories so if I'd known in advance that's what it was I probably wouldn't have read it.

Content Warnings

miggyfool's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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

Content Warnings

ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

“The House swallowed her, and inside it she found that she wasn’t alone. There were hundreds of girls buried within… Martyred girls, mutilated girls, girls that [she] thought, in her darkest moments, deserved what they had gotten. They all huddled close to one another for warmth. “A glad day will come,” one of them said… We are all here now. We wait for you. Irreversibly damaged.”

TITLE—Tell Me I’m Worthless

AUTHOR—Alison Rumfitt

PUBLISHED—2021

PUBLISHER—Nightfire (Tor Publishing Group)

GENRE—horror

SETTING—modern UK

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—fascism & bigotry (esp. transphobia & antisemitism), sentient/haunted house, trans MC, white supremacist villains, spiritual craftwork, TERFs, internalized transphobia & self-loathing, indoctrination/radicalisation & manipulation, sex work, Haunting of Hill House homage, Bluebeard & other dark fairy tales, abuse & trauma, drug use & house parties, fetishes, forgiveness

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

STORY/PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

BONUS ELEMENT/S—The explicit inspiration taken from Shirley Jackson’s HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and all the chosen epigraphs were really excellent and used to exceptional effect.

PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Once you have broken one social norm, well, what comes next really, oh, what comes next…”

PREMISE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

EXECUTION—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“No live organism can continue to exist compassionately under conditions of absolute fascism… I first read The Haunting of Hill House when I was sixteen, and I’ve never been able to think about haunting since then in a way that didn’t align with that book’s idea of a fundamentally demented place onto which you latch. Our house, my house, her house, was not like Hill House… Hill House was, I think, an apolitical animal. Our house was not. It had a system of beliefs. And those who walked there marched as one faceless mass.”

My thoughts:

This might end up being my favorite read of *the whole year* so I want to make sure that I’m being very intentional with my review of it here since I know I don’t have a lot of followers who are also horror genre fans... 😆

First of all I want to be clear that this book is written as a part of the horror genre and it truly, truly belongs there. 👀 While my review is going to be an absolute rave I cannot stress enough that unless you already appreciate the horror genre style of writing and usual content, and can properly sit with it 👀, this book will not be to you what it was to me. I promise. It is an absolutely, literally horrifying read. (In the acknowledgements Rumfitt says that she actually thought this book was “unpublishable” and thanked her publisher for actually publishing it and yeah that… that makes sense. 😅)

Now. That said. This book was *incredible.* This is easily one of the most important books I’ve ever read. Rumfitt tackled so many heavy topics in a way that was brutally honest and wrapped in some of the most upsetting imagery I have ever encountered in literature but which she used to make her point so effectively and so emphatically that by the end of the book all I could do was applaud.

Rumfitt is truly a phenom of a writer and definitely an autobuy author for me going forward. A thousand thank yous to IG:@night_worms for including this book in their February package this year. 🙏🏻💕

That’s all I’m going to say about it but check out the main themes/subjects I listed above and the CWs, obviously, oh! and there’s actually a fantastic review on goodreads by user: s.penkevich that breaks down the literary masterfullness of this book way better than I can so check that out as well. Also check out the one-star reviews because they will give you an idea of what you’re in for. 👀

Link to s.penkevich’s review on goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4426885157

I would recommend this book to readers who can a) enjoy the horror genre and b) want to read one of the most explosive and impactful books about fascism and the trans experience they will ever read. This book is best read gently—giving yourself enough time and space to set aside, process, and resume as needed. 👀

Final note: Please take the CWs/TWs very seriously before coming to this book—I cannot stress that enough. 🙏🏻

“I thought I forgave you, Ila my love, but I’m not so sure. Now kiss me hard on the mouth… Ila grabs my hand and pulls me one last time into the dark.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CW // all of them but especially, very graphic: sexual content (the most graphic of them all), transphobia, antisemitism, rape, suicide, self harm, body horror (PLEASE feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, by Shirley Jackson
SISTER OUTSIDER, by Audre Lorde
IN THE DREAM HOUSE, by Carmen Maria Machado—TBR
SHE IS A HAUNTING, by Trang Thanh Tran
WHITE IS FOR WITCHING, by Helen Oyeyemi
BABEL, by RF Kuang
THE NESTING, by CJ Cooke

Favorite Quotes—

“Rooms sit and stew. They take in the things you do in them. Their walls soak up every action you take between them, and those actions become part of the bricks and the plaster.”

“Why open the door? Why did you need to see what was in there?”

“I have to believe that other people have also experienced impossible, horrible things. I have to know that there are people who would understand if I talked to them. I have to know. I have to believe that my trauma is relatable, if controversial, that there are people who would listen to me and go, it’s okay Alice, it’s completely okay. You are so fucking normal. Everything you’ve experienced is normal.”

“…he cannot come near me, because I know to lay very, very still, because I have placed the right sigils in the right places…”

“Not that the symbolic is of no use, of course. The symbolic can be vital, the symbolic can evict or restore power. Symbols hold a shocking potential energy deep within, sometimes not evoked for generations upon generations.”

“…here’s what you want but not how you want it, here’s what you want me to do but I do it all wrong.”

“The possibility that… even worse, that her memory was false, and there was something even more horrific beneath.”

“The most famous haunted places in the world tend to be the big houses and castles, because rich people lived in them and the collective blood on their hands, the collective violence that they caused on everybody else in the world, manifests into ghosts.”

“Bigotry can sit inside of you, hardening, turning into something painful before you even realize it is there… Radicalisation is a complicated thing.”

“In the mirror Ila can see that she is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her traumas sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening. I can see you there. I know you are inside.”

“Sometimes, at the end of everything, the only option you have is to make it worse.”

“Is it clear how all of this works? How easy it is to slip, unthinking, into ways that the House wants you to be?”

“They both slept badly. When dreams came, they were jagged things, pressing themselves close until they came away bloody.”

“No live organism can continue to exist compassionately under conditions of absolute fascism… Albion, not compassionate, not sane, stood ringed by a tangled forest, holding inside, however messily, its overpowering ideology; it had stood so for a hundred years but would only stand for one more before it entered into the long process of becoming something else, at the end of which it was hoped it would seem to all the world that it had always been that way. Within, floors crumbled, ceilings gaped open, vines choked the chimneys and the windows. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of the house, and whatever walked there marched on Rome.”

“…inside the room is the pain you know, outside the room is the pain you do not know…”

“Memory is a difficult thing to navigate, especially traumatic memory. It splinters. You can cut yourself on the edges of it so easily.”

“…obviously this is a disgusting way to think but it is how she thinks…”

“You didn’t make him do it, but he let you in.”

“…we never left this House. That’s the truth of it. Sure, we stumbled out into the light of day, but enough of us stayed within, and enough of it stayed within us, that there was no real escape at all.”

“It keeps you alive. It makes you feel safe.”

“…both God’s own country and a godless place…”

“Once you have broken one social norm, well, what comes next really, oh, what comes next…”

“…she became part of the system just to survive…”

“…and I choke but I do not choke to death…”

quote from Sean Bonney: “Everything that’s happened since has been / a dream. A deep and horrible dream. / Wake up. For the sake of us all, wake up.”

“And the world comes crashing down around them. Maybe they’ll be okay. Do you think they’ll be okay, in the end? I think they will be. I have to think they will be.”

Content Warnings

keenanmaree's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark reflective tense slow-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

3.0

This was a really tough one to rate. I averaged it at 3 stars because there were things I loved about it and things I really didn’t love about it. I get that the point was to make the reader uncomfortable, but…..jesus. Take those content warnings very seriously.

Content Warnings

More...