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A review by savvylit
Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.0
"Memory is a difficult thing to navigate, especially traumatic memory. It splinters. You can cut yourself on the edges of it so easily."
Tell Me I'm Worthless is a brilliant literary horror novel in three parts, with three primary narrators: Alice, Ila, & the House. This novel is a take on the haunted house trope where the house is both malevolent and sentient. But the house, Albion, is not possessed by just one single spirit. Rather, the house is a manifestation of England's deep-seated fascist roots. Albion comes to represent the slow-drip poison of pervasive bigoted sentiment just under the surface of everyday life. Particularly towards immigrants and trans women. Rumfitt emphasizes this in multiple ways but never is it more effective than in her continual snarky use of the phrase "England's green and pleasant land" throughout the story.
Tell Me I'm Worthless is a book that ought to be read without knowing too much about the plot details. Honestly, the story unfolds so well that I'm not sure I could do it justice by summarizing it anyway. (But that's not to say that you shouldn't check the content warnings before reading, because you absolutely should.) Overall, all you need to know is that Rumfitt perfectly balances real-world terror and violence with hypnotic and disturbing supernatural sequences. I do want to forewarn readers that there is quite a lot of absolutely brutal sexual violence in this novel. To the point where I felt sickened pretty consistently as I read. However, the violence was never superfluous - it always served as a foil to the real lasting power of the story: trans love and trans resilience.
Tell Me I'm Worthless is a brilliant literary horror novel in three parts, with three primary narrators: Alice, Ila, & the House. This novel is a take on the haunted house trope where the house is both malevolent and sentient. But the house, Albion, is not possessed by just one single spirit. Rather, the house is a manifestation of England's deep-seated fascist roots. Albion comes to represent the slow-drip poison of pervasive bigoted sentiment just under the surface of everyday life. Particularly towards immigrants and trans women. Rumfitt emphasizes this in multiple ways but never is it more effective than in her continual snarky use of the phrase "England's green and pleasant land" throughout the story.
Tell Me I'm Worthless is a book that ought to be read without knowing too much about the plot details. Honestly, the story unfolds so well that I'm not sure I could do it justice by summarizing it anyway. (But that's not to say that you shouldn't check the content warnings before reading, because you absolutely should.) Overall, all you need to know is that Rumfitt perfectly balances real-world terror and violence with hypnotic and disturbing supernatural sequences. I do want to forewarn readers that there is quite a lot of absolutely brutal sexual violence in this novel. To the point where I felt sickened pretty consistently as I read. However, the violence was never superfluous - it always served as a foil to the real lasting power of the story: trans love and trans resilience.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Misogyny, Hate crime, Body horror, Antisemitism, Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, Drug use, Death, Sexual violence, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Classism, Blood, and Racial slurs