A review by lakecryptid
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • 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

This book really gripped me the whole time I was reading it-- I think I read it nonstop over a period of like 2 days, often late into the night. It pulled me into the story even when I had just planned to read a page or two while "multitasking" at cooking or working on personal projects. I was initially intrigued by the premise before the book came out, because I've read or seen so many different "gender apocalypse" stories which conveniently leave out trans people. As a trans woman myself, I obviously want to see a familiar perspective that is often neglected in fiction (I definitely need to broaden my horizons, but I think this is the first novel I've read with trans women protagonists), but I also think it's just good world-building, showing that the author has done some research and is willing to dig into the complicated nitty-gritty of what the effects of their chromosome apocalypse (or hormone plague or whatever) would actually be like, beyond a tired "battle of the sexes" type of story. I think that this book succeeds at telling a deeply human story of survival in the face of apocalypse, in such a way that the supernatural man-beasts take a back seat to the bone chilling political and genocidal violence that threatens to drown the main characters. That could be a plus or minus depending on how much sci-fi chaos people want in their post apocalypse, but I personally think this is the smart way to tell a post apocalypse story, in which the zombies or monsters become just another faction, or weapon, for the characters to navigate. 
The level of violence in this book is a lot, and the constant peril that the trans characters are in, in addition to the persistent self hatred and interpersonal vitriol, is often overwhelming. It was heartbreaking to read about Beth and Fran's fraught relationship, and seeing the former woman express such beautiful compassion and love, and be met with such deep rejection and loneliness, even from her close friend, was crushing, if accurate. It's sad that the level of trans misogyny and transphobia  feels  so believable and true to the current moment. Fran's character is understandably grating a lot of the time, and at times it feels like she and Beth almost veer into stereotypes, but not quite. The complex internal narratives and contradictions of the characters save them from being one-note, or simple didactic archetypes to illustrate a political point. I appreciated that in the context of Fran,
her betrayal of her friends was not excused, or easily forgiven, but neither was she made into a completely hate-able cast off (in my mind, that would have played into ideas of trans disposability that the story really tries to oppose). Her selfishness is abominable, and deeply human.
. Speaking as a trans woman, I feel like Fran and Beth can represent different aspects that live inside all of us. Learning to look at the ugly parts of our personal image, and learning how to turn away from selfishness and towards solidarity, is an extremely difficult thing to do, but an act of reflection that I think this story really tries to draw out. 
By far the most difficult sections of the book to read were the passages from the POV of
Ramona, the TERF soldier. Those parts of the book, unfortunately sometimes felt the most didactic, and the closest to what would have been a worse book as a whole-- a graphic morality tale in which the transphobe POV finds her humanity through the fridging of her favorite sex object. I don't think this was the intention at all, but unfortunately, Feather is one of the few regular characters in the book whose interior narrative we never see. Even a single passage showing their perspective during one of Ramona's scenes would have made a huge difference.
.
I recently finished the book, and upon reflecting more on the story, something I noticed was how all violence, including sexual violence, is presented in the book. The characters are always making pragmatic and strategic decisions about how much violence they can endure, at what cost, and when they can afford to fight back. This kind of grim pragmatism in perspective feels jarring and gross to read, and it should. It's the honest reflection of a bunch of people living through nonstop trauma, in which there often is no "safe" choice, and the only ways the characters can exercise control is by trying as hard as they can to pick how and when they can resist, and when they have to dissociate to live and fight another day. I've read criticisms that the violence and sex in the book is often described in a uniformly graphic style, regardless of the context. I can see that as a valid criticism, since it could be seen as not making a distinction, for example, between consensual sex and sexual violence, or violence and sex at all. In my view, that distinction is still there, but the stylistic unity across scenes shows that in the minds of the characters, the horrible violence they have endured never really leaves their minds, or bodies. It haunts them as they run, as they fight, as they hold their loved ones and are re-traumatized by their enemies. It's gruesome and crushing to read, but in my mind, those are some of the most realistic and affecting parts of the story that really make an impact about the type of world the characters are living in, and what types of perspectives they have been forced to abandon through trauma. 
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