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

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

51 reviews

akinderjim's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad 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

3.75

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thisismybooknook's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

0.25

Edited to add: this could have been much better as a short story. The Hannah chapter was better written.

Legitimately, this book was not for me. Now, there are trigger warnings from Rumfitt at the beginning of this book, however I don't feel like they warn enough, in my opinion. I've read books that have depictions of assault, sexual assault, and other things in them... but this was essentially trauma porn: rape, transphobia, and wildly misogynistic. It left me extremely uncomfortable, as the reader, and I forced myself to finish it. It is very derogatory, hate-filled, and feels like a psychotic episode. Trigger warnings for everything you can imagine.

Now, I'm not a writer, but I feel like this book lacked an editor. There were paragraphs that spanned four pages, sentences that were outrageously long, and portions that repeated the same thought over and over again. I counted the word political in one sentence 11 times.

If Rumfitt's goal was to make the reader insanely uncomfortable, she did her job. I understand that this is a book about privilege, fascism, and capitalism... but maybe I'm just not smart enough to get it. I just want to completely erase this from my memory.

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laiva's review against another edition

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challenging dark hopeful reflective 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

4.5

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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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studydniowka's review

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dark funny mysterious 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

2.0

Dla mnie ta książka nie miała sensu, a to, co się w niej działo, było po prostu śmieszne. Kiedy książka promowana jako horror bawi, zamiast wywoływać strach, to jest coś bardzo nie tak.

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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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