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

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

52 reviews

aus10england's review

challenging dark sad tense medium-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? Yes

5.0

An absolutely incredible work of queer horror fiction. I’ve never read anything like it. The house being a central character was SO well done. There are some HORRIFIC things in this book, but they don’t feel gimmicky or use in a way as to illicit shock factor. Some interesting political commentary in there as well.

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throwback682's review against another edition

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dark tense

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

This is the most disturbing book I’ve ever read in my life.

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billie_budd's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-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

5.0

absolutely brutal read but so so worth it

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gia0203's review

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challenging dark emotional funny 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

4.25

This book showed how fascism is circular - how our history is shared and how quickly our anger at our own circumstances becomes hatred for others. It was hard to read at times, but that’s the point. Horror is a fantastic way to examine the world around us, and Alison knows it.

The climax of this book is harrowing and I felt nauseous reading it. What a fucking ride. The way the text splits into two… Original, terrific.

I will say though that the idealistic ending between Alice and Ila is forced. This book should have ended on page 252. I don’t buy for a second that they could’ve escaped that house and moved on so happily. Maybe I’m pessimistic, but trauma isn’t so easily erased and radicalism can’t be so quickly undone. These two were doomed from the start. It was just too quickly wrapped up. I felt like Alison was just too fond of them to give them the ending they should have had.

I also think that the social commentary became too much at times. I understood the point was that all oppression is similar, but it was just a bit too much to comprehend.

That said, I will never read this book again, but I would completely recommend it. It is not for the faint of heart.

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enchantressreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

“Ghosts are born from trauma and violence.”

Alice and Ila couldn’t be more opposites—Alice is a trans woman, while Ila is a TERF, actively writing articles about how trans women are the downfall of society. What they have in common is the House.

Tell Me I’m Worthless is a slow burn, and I didn’t know what was going on half of the time, but I was in for the vibes. The story is told in four different perspectives: Alice’s, Ila’s, Hannah’s (their third friend, who didn’t make it out of Albion), and the House. My favorite chapters were definitely the House’s. That’s when things really got weird.

The House shows how fully ingrained transphobia (and all the other phobias) are into not just our minds, but the very soil we live on. A seed that’s planted will be growing for centuries, if it’s planted correctly. While veiled in a haunted house story, it’s really a story about society as a whole.

“Tell me what you think of me, what you really think of me. Tell me I’m nothing. Tell me I’m worthless.”

There are plenty of trigger warnings for this novel, which Rumfitt generously gives at the beginning of the book, so read with caution. TW for dysphoria, blood, racism, antisemitism, rape (on page), sexual assault, violence, sexual violence, transphobia, toxic relationship/friendship, suicide attempt, self harm, drug use/abuse, domestic abuse, animal death, xenophobia, and an adult/minor relationship.

With that said, tread with caution. But if you are in a good headspace for this book, I definitely recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the chance to read this advanced review copy. Tell Me I’m Worthless is on shelves now.

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lidia7's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

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emimli's review

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

0.5

I wanted to love this book so badly, but it left me feeling extremely disappointed and kind of pissed off.

Things I liked:
- A very original twist on the haunted house trope that explores how ideological violence leaves its imprint on people, spaces, and cultures
- Some genuinely horrifying imagery that will stick with me for a while
- Deep explorations of trauma, repression, and the ways in which violent victimization can reshape a person’s perception of reality
- A complex central relationship, wherein both characters love each other as people but hate what the other represents ideologically

Things I hated:
- This book was edgy purely for the sake of being edgy at times, to the point where it became tedious; Rumfitt could not go two lines without having a ~welcome 2 my twisted mind~ moment
- The blurb refers to this book as "darkly funny" but there was not a single ounce of humour anywhere in here. What am I supposed to be laughing at? Violent anti-Semitism? Graphic sexual assault? Fuck off
- The political commentary was extremely heavy-handed, to the point where it almost seemed intentionally corny, as if the book was mocking its own denunciation of fascism, which definitely isn't a good look
- The two main characters are horrible fucking people. One is a TERF and one is a straight-up neo-Nazi. Okay, fine. Unlikeable characters can make for interesting stories. Yet the book pushes you to sympathize with them, particularly the neo-Nazi. No. I will not sympathize with them. They both fucking suck and I hate them
-

The character “development” is handled poorly and inconsistently. At the end of the book, the main characters get some kind of attempt at a redemption arc, where they’re finally in a seemingly healthy relationship and are doing activist work. The aforementioned TERF character has come out as trans and renounced his former ideology, which was an interesting conclusion to his arc. But the other main character’s literal Nazism is never brought up again. Let me repeat that: the author never addresses that one of the main characters is a LITERAL NAZI again. The reader is clearly meant to root for the couple in this epilogue, but how the fuck am I supposed to do that when ONE IS A FUCKING NAZI. I absolutely could not stand the book’s attempts to make me sympathize with Alice or want the best for her, because she. is. a. Nazi. All the way to the bitter end.
- Hannah?????? What the fuck was the point of her death and subsequent imprisonment in the house?? For a book that beats you over the head at every turn with the messages it wants you to internalize, it sure did lack any explanation whatsoever for Hannah’s role in the story. “White women are symbols” is repeated several times throughout the book and I presume that this is somehow related to Hannah’s fate, but I could not for the life of me tell you how. Like yes it applies in a literal sense to Hannah (*shudder*) but what is it supposed to mean in relation to the broader themes of the book???

- The book’s historical engagement with the topic of fascism is strangely limited to WW2, even though it alludes to ancient Britain (Albion) being some kind of source of fascism and fascism-adjacent beliefs. Soooo what happened in the years between Albion and WW2? Fascism didn’t emerge out of a vacuum, fully formed in the 1930s - it was built on the foundations of existing ideologies. So where is the discussion about the ideologies that fascism grew out of? Imperialism, colonization, the ideological construction of whiteness, of masculinity, etc.? There was no clear connection between the ancient source of the house’s power and the fascist ideology that haunts it, because the author never attempts to draw one. She just jumps from ~the vaguely ancient times~ to WW2 without linking anything together.

Overall, the message of this book can be succinctly summarized as “fascism bad.” Which yes, that’s absolutely true, but I already knew that. While this book has a lot to offer to the horror genre, it adds nothing new or interesting to political conversation. And it’s weird efforts to make me sympathize with its anti-Semitic main character pissed me the fuck off.

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