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A review by kelshef
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I thought this book would be a fun, misandrist adventure with a diverse cast of characters. I found it to be a much deeper, more thought-provoking work than I expected.
The beautifully descriptive, vividly gory, sensual writing in this book allows the reader to really inhabit the bodies of the main characters in a way that is rare in literature. This was especially enlightening for me, a cis, straight woman feeling a connection to and understanding of the trans experience of the characters that I’ve never felt before.
I think the characters and their interiority far outshine their plot and environment of this book. The first third of the book deliberately grounds us in the two protagonists’ experience of their world, but the latter two thirds, where the majority of the plot occurs, felt rushed to me. I understand that what the characters were experiencing was frantic and fast-paced, but I found myself taken out of the story by wondering what the hell was going on and why it was happening.
I do think the very end of the book did the characters justice, and wrapped up the story with a feeling of some hope that the survivors will be able to find a way to live a life of integrity and truth, at least for awhile.
While the book is gross (in a great way) and extremely violent, I didn’t feel a sense of dread or horror until one of the final scenes of the book. This isn’t the type of horror to leave you with nightmares, it’s the type that will leave you identifying the horror of the world that we live in today, and recognizing that some of us might actually have a better, more respected life in a (more, different) dystopian hellscape.
The beautifully descriptive, vividly gory, sensual writing in this book allows the reader to really inhabit the bodies of the main characters in a way that is rare in literature. This was especially enlightening for me, a cis, straight woman feeling a connection to and understanding of the trans experience of the characters that I’ve never felt before.
I think the characters and their interiority far outshine their plot and environment of this book. The first third of the book deliberately grounds us in the two protagonists’ experience of their world, but the latter two thirds, where the majority of the plot occurs, felt rushed to me. I understand that what the characters were experiencing was frantic and fast-paced, but I found myself taken out of the story by wondering what the hell was going on and why it was happening.
I do think the very end of the book did the characters justice, and wrapped up the story with a feeling of some hope that the survivors will be able to find a way to live a life of integrity and truth, at least for awhile.
While the book is gross (in a great way) and extremely violent, I didn’t feel a sense of dread or horror until one of the final scenes of the book. This isn’t the type of horror to leave you with nightmares, it’s the type that will leave you identifying the horror of the world that we live in today, and recognizing that some of us might actually have a better, more respected life in a (more, different) dystopian hellscape.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, Transphobia, Body horror, Blood, Deadnaming, Death, Dysphoria, Gore, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual content, Gun violence, Outing, Rape, Self harm, and Toxic friendship