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A review by alina_kolpakova
Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
I struggle to find words to describe this book. It is definitely the most confusing thing I have ever read. The book is (very explicitly) about the spread of fascism in the UK. It does not flinch in the face of horrific actions people do and internet pipelines people go down. One of the most confusing examples of this was when the author included a complete online post of a German man fantasizing about degrading and killing trans women -- it went on for several minutes (I listened to the audiobook)and felt like a fever dream.
While the conversation on how easy it is to turn to fascism is so SO necessary and timely, I struggled to see any mechanism by which it spreads other than "internet (aka the house) bad." We learn that our two main characters hate each other for their respective identities -- a child of immigrants and a trans woman. But we never get any solid reason why. OK, Ila shows a lot more resentment towards Alice's transness after the "incident" (no matter how misguided the hate) but then we learn she never really saw Alice as a woman before that anyways?? Why?? What's the source of her transphobia? Even more confusingly, why did Alice hate immigrants? There's no timeline of this idea developing within Alice. To me, that is bizarre because those are not a light opinion to come to. It felt like the author was trying her darndest to equalize the two types of hate without any nuance of why TERFs and anti-immigrant bigots come to exist.
While the conversation on how easy it is to turn to fascism is so SO necessary and timely, I struggled to see any mechanism by which it spreads other than "internet (aka the house) bad." We learn that our two main characters hate each other for their respective identities -- a child of immigrants and a trans woman. But we never get any solid reason why. OK, Ila shows a lot more resentment towards Alice's transness after the "incident" (no matter how misguided the hate) but then we learn she never really saw Alice as a woman before that anyways?? Why?? What's the source of her transphobia? Even more confusingly, why did Alice hate immigrants? There's no timeline of this idea developing within Alice. To me, that is bizarre because those are not a light opinion to come to. It felt like the author was trying her darndest to equalize the two types of hate without any nuance of why TERFs and anti-immigrant bigots come to exist.