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Manhunt
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Horror (2022)Y: The Last Man meets The Girl With All the Gifts in Gretchen Felker-Martin's Manhunt, an explosive post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and men on a grotesque journey of survival.
Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.
After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.
Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.
Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.
After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.
Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.
296 pages, Paperback
First published February 22, 2022
About the author
Gretchen Felker-Martin
12 books943 followersGRETCHEN FELKER-MARTIN is a Massachusetts-based horror author and film critic. Her debut novel, Manhunt, was named the #1 Best Book of 2022 by Vulture, and one of the Best Horror Novels of 2022 by Esquire, Library Journal, and Paste. You can follow her work on Twitter and read her fiction and film criticism on Patreon and in TIME, The Outline, Nylon, Polygon, and more.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,831 reviews
November 26, 2022
Gretchen Felker-Martin's Manhunt is sublime horror--gory, impeccably written, a condemnation and a celebration with a cast of incredibly flawed, deeply interesting characters. I had no idea what to expect when I started reading Manhunt. The novel drops you right in the middle of action. The world has been overturned by a plague that turns men into monsters and in the aftermath, packs of wild men roam the world looking for prey. Only women and trans men have survived and the stakes, for trans women are precarious as they hunt for sources of estrogen to keep themselves alive in every sense of the world. Though the novel starts, with friends Beth and Fran, soon their world expands as they come across Robbie, a man who saves their lives and gets romantically involved with Fran and Indy, a doctor who is using her skills as best she can in a terrifying world with terrifying stakes. They must contend with merciless TERFs who use gender essentialism as a cudgel to rule what's left of the world. The TERF leader Teach hoards power at all costs while her must trusted lieutenant, Ramona, falls in line even when she shouldn't while harboring a secret love for a nonbinary person. There is so much to love here. Manhunt revels in contradictions and complexity. The novel is uncomfortable, but not because of the gore or violence. It's uncomfortable because when you look at how this world we live in treats trans people, what happens in Manhunt seems entirely plausible and yeah, maybe we should all sit with that for a minute or ten. It's a reminder that survival is a brutal thing, that desperation reveals who we really are, and that even at the end of the world, every one just wants to be seen and understood and acknowledged as they really are. By far the best book I've read this year. You should read it and share it with all your friends and enemies.
I will also add that this is one of the few and maybe the only book I've ever read that acknowledges that fat people would exist in a dystopia and gets into what the reality of that might look like. We can't all run for hours on end while trying to escape feral hordes of men and TERFs.
I will also add that this is one of the few and maybe the only book I've ever read that acknowledges that fat people would exist in a dystopia and gets into what the reality of that might look like. We can't all run for hours on end while trying to escape feral hordes of men and TERFs.
June 12, 2021
Stop review bombing a trans woman author because you’re mad she isn’t writing sexless uwu smol bean YA trash.
Shelved as 'cover-appreciation'
March 15, 2022LOL @ this cover 🤭
June 24, 2021
Reading this book was like tonguing a live wire; I loved every moment and I still haven’t recovered. As erotic as it is devastating, as brilliant as it is visceral, Manhunt is a modern horror masterpiece.
April 17, 2022
Y’all want to worship this book because the main characters are trans but ignore the terrible writing, disgusting demonization of women, grotesque depictions of characters eating organs from zombified people’s bodies, and horrifying misogyny evident in just the first chapters available to preview.
And considering the author has said things like “I truly, sincerely believe that art should have more rape in it” and “I'm a woman, and a professional author, and I've never written anything without at least one rape scene in it,” I’d be surprised if there wasn’t graphic depictions of rape or other violence against women in it. Truly disgusting that this book has been approved by any publishing house.
And considering the author has said things like “I truly, sincerely believe that art should have more rape in it” and “I'm a woman, and a professional author, and I've never written anything without at least one rape scene in it,” I’d be surprised if there wasn’t graphic depictions of rape or other violence against women in it. Truly disgusting that this book has been approved by any publishing house.
April 16, 2023
Holy Splatterpunk, this is good!!
Caution: Don't read whilst eating...
Honestly, I don't even know how to begin going about reviewing this book. While it technically fits into genres that I have read, it's like nothing else.
Manhunt is like being punched in the face repeatedly and enjoying it. Maybe even asking for more...
This is like an unrated version of The Walking Dead, but with trans and other queer main characters.
Basically this story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has turned the entire male population into horrifying creatures; like walkers.
We follow two best friends, Beth and Fran, trans women, trying to survive in New England. They are manhunters. For reasons I won't go into here, they kill the infected men and harvest certain parts of them.
Any time they are out hunting they are in terrible danger. This entire setting is incredibly risky. There are not just the infected men they have to deal with, but also bands of TERFs scouting certain areas, as well as other general apocalypse survivors.
Everything and everyone poses a risk.
Over the course of the first part of the story, Fran and Beth join up with a trans man named, Robbie, and their long-time friend, a fertility doctor named, Indi.
Basically, as you can imagine, living situations in this world are highly unstable. We follow our quad as they move from one place to another, trying to find a safe situation for themselves. It ain't easy and a lot of blood, guts and various other bodily fluids get shed along the way.
Y'all, wow. I haven't read something this bloody, gorey, toe-curling, gag-inducing, addicting, erotic and uncomfortable, well...ever.
I love how Felker-Martin never lets up. It's not a super gore-filled scene followed by 50-pages of nonsense. It is balls to the wall, pardon the pun, the entire way through.
The post-apocalyptic setting was so well done. I loved the idea behind the virus, how it struck men and how society tried to rearrange itself after. That was very creative.
Additionally, the characters were well done. I wish I had gotten to know each of them a little bit more, but I understand you can only make stories so long. The important bits were all here.
Towards the end, it did get chaotic for me. The perspectives were shifting so rapidly, it was sometimes hard to follow. In particular, as the final showdown approached, a few times I lost track of whose perspective I was reading from.
Overall, this was such an addicting story. Holy smokes. I feel like I need to take a recovery day to get over it. It's violent, erotic, thought-provoking, visceral...did I mention erotic?
Proceed with caution, but also, don't. It's a ride worth being a little uncomfortable for. You can eat again after it's over.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Tor Nightfire, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I cannot wait to see what Gretchen Felker-Martin dishes up next!!
Caution: Don't read whilst eating...
Honestly, I don't even know how to begin going about reviewing this book. While it technically fits into genres that I have read, it's like nothing else.
Manhunt is like being punched in the face repeatedly and enjoying it. Maybe even asking for more...
This is like an unrated version of The Walking Dead, but with trans and other queer main characters.
Basically this story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has turned the entire male population into horrifying creatures; like walkers.
We follow two best friends, Beth and Fran, trans women, trying to survive in New England. They are manhunters. For reasons I won't go into here, they kill the infected men and harvest certain parts of them.
Any time they are out hunting they are in terrible danger. This entire setting is incredibly risky. There are not just the infected men they have to deal with, but also bands of TERFs scouting certain areas, as well as other general apocalypse survivors.
Everything and everyone poses a risk.
Over the course of the first part of the story, Fran and Beth join up with a trans man named, Robbie, and their long-time friend, a fertility doctor named, Indi.
Basically, as you can imagine, living situations in this world are highly unstable. We follow our quad as they move from one place to another, trying to find a safe situation for themselves. It ain't easy and a lot of blood, guts and various other bodily fluids get shed along the way.
Y'all, wow. I haven't read something this bloody, gorey, toe-curling, gag-inducing, addicting, erotic and uncomfortable, well...ever.
I love how Felker-Martin never lets up. It's not a super gore-filled scene followed by 50-pages of nonsense. It is balls to the wall, pardon the pun, the entire way through.
The post-apocalyptic setting was so well done. I loved the idea behind the virus, how it struck men and how society tried to rearrange itself after. That was very creative.
Additionally, the characters were well done. I wish I had gotten to know each of them a little bit more, but I understand you can only make stories so long. The important bits were all here.
Towards the end, it did get chaotic for me. The perspectives were shifting so rapidly, it was sometimes hard to follow. In particular, as the final showdown approached, a few times I lost track of whose perspective I was reading from.
Overall, this was such an addicting story. Holy smokes. I feel like I need to take a recovery day to get over it. It's violent, erotic, thought-provoking, visceral...did I mention erotic?
Proceed with caution, but also, don't. It's a ride worth being a little uncomfortable for. You can eat again after it's over.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Tor Nightfire, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I cannot wait to see what Gretchen Felker-Martin dishes up next!!
May 2, 2022
The only reason I'm not giving a 1 is because I don't want to be grouped with the transphobes hating this book because it's trans. I am a trans person and a huge horror fan so was excited for this book. But God was this. Alot. I feel like this book was meant for nothing but shock value. Every page is filled with murder, rape, cannibalism, and sexually explicit content with no breaks. And I don't think it frames trans people in a good light at all, it makes sense why transphobes are using this book to back up their negative ideas on what a trans person is. Also, while the concept of this book and the plague is intriguing I don't think the author spent enough time exploring the idea of what this world means for trans people in different stages of transition. And idk how it sits with me that trans women in this book if they go off hrt become murderous rapists, or the opposite for trans men. Before I started T, I was told by so many people it would change me and make me an angrier, meaner person and this book kinda supports that misconception. Also everyone in this book is so sex obsessed it's weird. God my thoughts are just all over the place with this book,
tldr everything in this sat wrong with me and it fuels transphobic ideas and misconceptions
tldr everything in this sat wrong with me and it fuels transphobic ideas and misconceptions
February 11, 2023
Q from the author: I truly, sincerely believe that art should have more rape in it.
Well fuck no!
This crap doesn't need to be read. I usually never hate books before I've read them, but if an author raves about rape for "fun", and says there should be more of that in books, that's a big no. No. just no.
Fuck off, you misogynistic person.
Well fuck no!
This crap doesn't need to be read. I usually never hate books before I've read them, but if an author raves about rape for "fun", and says there should be more of that in books, that's a big no. No. just no.
Fuck off, you misogynistic person.
March 7, 2022
Edit: Updating my review because actually, after looking at the author's Twitter, I take it back. I wouldn't read anything else by someone who posted someone's negative review to mock, disparagingly referred to AFAB nonbinary authors as "theyfabs" (whose books you shouldn't buy, according to her), and encouraged the dogpiling of an author writing a book she didn't like. I'm good! All that's a pass for me!
This works better as polemic than it does as a horror novel; it has a weak plot, with so. Very. Many. Timeskips, most of which weren't announced until a few pages after the skip, which made it hard to tell how much time was actually passing in the book. The embarrassing pop culture references means this is gonna be hella fucked dated come five years' time, if it even lasts that long. Constant sex scenes - everyone was so horny for everyone all the time, regardless of what else was going on. Indi at one point mentions that funerals make her horny, which, okay, sure, throw that in for the shock value; it adds nothing to the character, but you're the author.
And shock value is really what carries this book, that and some very nice prose. The problem is that shock value is all that it has, and it runs on too long for the gruesome descriptions and brutal events to remain shocking, and good prose only does so much if you've lost interest otherwise.
Better worldbuilding or characters with traits beyond "extremely horny for everyone" (oh, and "self-pitying and self-centered to a painful degree") might have made this less of a drag to read past the halfway mark, but neither of those materialize at any point. I'd read something else by her, but I think I'll pick something shorter next time.
ETA: I'm at my keyboard now instead of on my phone and spoilers ahead, because it discusses the grand finale Big Boss Fight at the end of the book.
So, two stars. It was okay.
This works better as polemic than it does as a horror novel; it has a weak plot, with so. Very. Many. Timeskips, most of which weren't announced until a few pages after the skip, which made it hard to tell how much time was actually passing in the book. The embarrassing pop culture references means this is gonna be hella fucked dated come five years' time, if it even lasts that long. Constant sex scenes - everyone was so horny for everyone all the time, regardless of what else was going on. Indi at one point mentions that funerals make her horny, which, okay, sure, throw that in for the shock value; it adds nothing to the character, but you're the author.
And shock value is really what carries this book, that and some very nice prose. The problem is that shock value is all that it has, and it runs on too long for the gruesome descriptions and brutal events to remain shocking, and good prose only does so much if you've lost interest otherwise.
Better worldbuilding or characters with traits beyond "extremely horny for everyone" (oh, and "self-pitying and self-centered to a painful degree") might have made this less of a drag to read past the halfway mark, but neither of those materialize at any point. I'd read something else by her, but I think I'll pick something shorter next time.
ETA: I'm at my keyboard now instead of on my phone and spoilers ahead, because it discusses the grand finale Big Boss Fight at the end of the book.
So, two stars. It was okay.
June 14, 2023
it's cool that this is pitched as a corrective to the canon of gender-plague novels, although it's not taking aim at stuff like herland or the female man so much as, basically, Y the last man & that fake looking book the end of men—specifically, the way this kind of book fails to account for trans people. unfortunately the world of manhunt is defined by self-hatred to the point of absurdity. if you wanted to satirize the "narcissism" of trans women that people who hate us talk about, idk if you could do a better job than this: it's incredible how much the women in this book worry about how clocky they are. maybe "internalized transmisogyny" is the real plague? the monomaniacal, self-loathing internal monologues (and corny joss whedon one-liners, surprisingly) pile on for hundreds of pages; a pulpy fast-paced thriller spins its wheels around them until the big, kinda unintelligible, action climax. there's something a little disingenuous about the idea that unrelenting ugliness is somehow more truthful than any other approach; as if brutal violence and cruelty can't be done as poorly as anything else, or that wallowing in misery is valuable simply because it's upsetting. but that's for another time :)
like detransition baby, this is never weaker than when it slips into soapboxing and reveals the fundamental myopia of its cultural worldview—absolutely a book written by someone who is too active on twitter (yes—takes one to know one). most of the bits that do land are the parts you'd expect in anything marketed as trans fiction. not convinced much else here works but hey. we'll get there one day girls!
like detransition baby, this is never weaker than when it slips into soapboxing and reveals the fundamental myopia of its cultural worldview—absolutely a book written by someone who is too active on twitter (yes—takes one to know one). most of the bits that do land are the parts you'd expect in anything marketed as trans fiction. not convinced much else here works but hey. we'll get there one day girls!
October 9, 2021
Manhunt is the feel-bad classic of the decade. A pitiless, nerve-shredding descent into Hell; as ruthless as it is perceptive, this book reached into my chest, tore my fears out, and showed them to me. Gretchen Felker-Martin writes the best queer horror on the market.
March 14, 2023
I DEFINITELY didn't enjoy this book. The premise was good, and if the book delivered what it promised, it could have been great. But it didn't. I feel the whole point of this book was to try and offend people. There was lots of gore, violence, and misogyny. I enjoy horror, but this was not it. The plot was weak, and the time jumping was confusing.
The graphic scenes of rape added no actual meaning to the book, but since finishing this book, I've discovered that the author claimed, "I truly, sincerely believe that art should have more rape in it". I cannot understand how this made it out of a publishing house. This is another author I will be adding to my, never read a book by them again list.
The graphic scenes of rape added no actual meaning to the book, but since finishing this book, I've discovered that the author claimed, "I truly, sincerely believe that art should have more rape in it". I cannot understand how this made it out of a publishing house. This is another author I will be adding to my, never read a book by them again list.
July 23, 2022
More accurate rating: 1/10.
Full video rant review here: https://youtu.be/F5YI7bXmhdg.
Disclaimer: I read this primarily because Normal People was making my grief and depression worse, and I needed some trash to distract my broken heart. So yes, I went in fully expecting this to be bad - though not quite as bad as it turned out to be -, and as an autistic, gender-critical feminist (so technically one of the book's "baddies" lmao) who has this whole debate as one of her very niche special interests. Y'all ready?
I've read my fair share of sex-based plague/power-shift stories over the past couple of years (The Power, The Screwfly Solution, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Y: The Last Man and The End of Men). I've been disappointed about as equally as I've been satisfied by them: what often fails for me is the superficiality of the theming and the flimsiness of the world-building, The Power and The End of Men were especially guilty of that... But holy shit does Manhunt take the cake here.
Manhunt, a text that tries to be a queered up and porned up amalgamation of Y: The Last Man, The Screwfly Solution and The Walking Dead, presents the reader with a world where a pathogen, the t-rex (really? 🙄) virus transforms anyone with high-enough testosterone levels into an über-aggressive, dehumanised hybrid between a zombie and a werewolf that wants to rape, eat and kill (not necessarily in that order) anything that has a hole between their legs. In practice however, that just means men and... pre-op trans women, but not really because mile-wide holes in the world-building. The remaining women and trans people have to survive in a very ugly world where groups of so-called TERFs (never defined for normies of course) have established a matriarchy of some sort and are going around killing the trans women they find for fear of them wolf-zombying out on them. We follow two trans women main characters, Beth and Fran, quickly followed by a trans man, Robbie, their woman friend and hormone supplier Indi, and Ramona, one of the baddies who is actually a chaser who ends up betraying her camp to get some transgendered ass, literally. And... Not much happens, really, that resembles a plot. Random events happen, so that lots of sex (and gross sex) can happen, and then BAM! some final localised showdown between the baddie TERFs and the trans people + allies, with zero consequences for the wider world or the future of said world.
This book is supposed to be the author's answer to the lack of trans representation in the niche genre of "sex-based apocalypse fiction". A) That's not at all what this is, but I'll get back to that; B) It's a flawed premise in the sense trans people are represented, covertly, in that genre - just not in the way some would like. In The End of Men, where the plague latches onto the Y chromosome, trans women exist, but they die along with the men, because they are male humans.
Also, this book is sold as horror, but it honestly felt more like porn to me at times. At the very least it's... I don't know, horror-porn? There is so much pointless, grossly-described sex in this book. To say it's gratuitous is an understatement. Ex: He paused, open mouth full of half-chewed mush. Beth wondered if he breathed through his nose that loud when he sucked cock. 🤦♀️ It's all kinky shit too (no offence to BDSMers, but the specific kind displayed in Manhunt was really not my cup of tea), with power-play involving constant references to "mommies" and "daddies". Fuck's sake! 🤮 In any case the book is certainly not scarier than something like The Walking Dead, nor even as gory. Honestly I was taken aback by the sex, and clear contempt, not to say hatred, that permeated the page, not the relatively mild splattering of body parts implied by this supposedly being "splatterpunk".
1) Plot:
What plot?
No, I mean seriously, what actual plot? Beth and Fran collect testicles to extract oestrogen (like that would actually work, even the crazy fucks who sold testosterone as an elixir of youth back when sex steroids were first discovered would create a solution out of balls and inject it sub-dermally, not eat the gonads raw and let their stomach acids ruin their contents), Robbie saves them from marauding zombie-werewolves (but not before Beth gets graphically anally raped, and mildly gets off on it, of course), then the trio leaves with their bud Indi to go to a bunker held by a crazy rich kid when the TERFs roll into their town, the TERF character fucks a non-binary male prostitute, feels bad about it, leads a hit squad and gets in gud with the leader called Teach, then shit with the bunker goes south, the protags hole up by this old WW II fort and face a final showdown with the TERF army who got themselves a shiny battleship, but not before the chaser TERF betrays her side, ultimately turning the tables and allowing the protags, minus the trans woman Fran, to see another day in this idiotic world the author has created. This thing was so boring at times, filled as it was - in-between the porn and Twitter screeding - with absurd similes, pointless descriptions and emotionless flashbacks.
2) Writing:
The writing was really bad in places, fine in others. But oh my gods the similes... And the repetitions... And the immature, "edgy-because-I-can" language. Did you know fellow readers that a gun shot sounds like a tiny fluffy dog (a bichon frisé, to be exact)? Or that frying something in a pan sounds like small mouths smacking? 🤦♀️ I've also learned that every other person has skin that smells like milk, or that they taste like milk (huh?). Or that zombie-werewolf men would have breath that smells like cum (because that totally makes sense?). Everyone also has stretch marks bloody everywhere.
The word cunt is also used all. The. Bloody. Time. It's not even that it offends me so much, because it doesn't really, it's just that it's so clearly, artlessly meant to be vulgar and edgy - this ain't D.H.Lawrence material folks. And not only do the trans women say cunt all of the time, the women do too, even the American radical feminists who I'm pretty sure loathe the word. Every female refers to their own vulva as a cunt, and refers to other women as bitches and cunts all of the time. #justwomanthings amirite?! 🥴 (Periods are also referenced a suspicious - read fetishistic - amount of times)
Another sin in my book is using the word girl when referring to grown-arse women (or trans women). Because here again it is done all. Of. The. Bloody. Time. To the point where you really do start to wonder if it's not a fetish for the author (because it probably is, as is all of the porn content in the book really). Women in their 30s! All the time! Fuck's sake. Yes women sometimes call each other girls (and I hate it), but absolutely not to the extent the author uses. It is infantilising, disrespectful and gross, especially when plonked into this kind of sentence:
Fuck me so I can feel like a girl. 🤮🤮🤮 Like I'm sorry but who the fuck thinks this kind of thing after having been violently anally raped by a bunch of zombie-werewolves?! It is so freaking disgusting and creepy.
This book will also (quite to the contrary of what the author seems to believe on Twitter) become completely irrelevant in a few years, chock-full as it is with American younger Millennial/Zoomer idpol-wars "discourse" and pop-media references that don't mean jack-shit to the majority of people. And there are multiple, poorly established time-jumps and shit, not that I really cared.
3) Character-work:
This book is misogynistic, absolutely, but it's also lesbophobic, fatphobic (never thought I'd use that word but here we are), a little misandrist too and even, I would argue, transphobic! Yup.
Not only does the author clearly imply, several times, that trans women are not really women (which is considered transphobic these days, yes?), ironically but hilariously enough; she constantly stresses how Beth doesn't pass, how both her and Fran have to prove or acquire their womanhood, because deep down they know they're not really women. She constantly describes trans women characters in very unflattering terms, emphasising their masculine traits. And even more ironically, she made Beth and Fran to be absolute stereotypes, playing right into her ideological opponent's hands. 😂
Beth, Fran (and Robbie too honestly) are unsympathetic, vain, conceited, narcissistic sex pests who only think about the fact they can't fully transition now the Apocalypse has happened, or fucking (popping boners at the same time, #justwomanthings) when they're about to die or kill someone else (no, seriously). Beth also, you know, broke another kid's jaw when she was six, over a toy car, and Robbie both assaulted a teenager with a nail gun at school and committed arson, burning an entire house down when he was younger. Charming, totally not mentally unstable people, right? Like for real, I was supposed to care/root for these creeps? Their virtue-signalling Indian doctor buddy wasn't much better: like how do you remain morbidly obese for five years after an apocalypse if it's not by hoarding food? And that's another thing: the author spends just so much time detailing the obesity of her character, lingering on it in a really unsettling, and quite honestly fetishising way. Gross. But yes Indi converts ball juice into oestrogen, is a fertility specialist but like... Never tries to help out by figuring out a way to keep humans reproducing? No? Can only bitch about white women and thirst, "cunt dripping" as cunts do (not, the author deserves a spot on r/badwomensanatomy, and r/transwomenwritingwomen I guess) after her submissive trans girlfriend. And the betrayer TERF Ramona is also a gross sex pest who calls herself a lesbian but secretly thirsts for transsexual dick (as all lesbians do, n'est-ce pas?).
Even the villains aren't convincing. They're cartoonishly evil, is the problem. Like the head baddie who helms a platoon of TERFs for the Matriarchy of Maryland or some shit, called Teach, used to work at Guantanamo. For real bruh? Oh, she also used to be buds with Janice fucking Raymond. Like anyone outside of this debate is going to fucking know who that even is (no offence to her). It's so bloody irrelevant, not to mention stupid, Jesus! 🤦♀️ It's not as bad as the "Knights of J.K.Rowling" I suppose. Like freaking hell, talk about unsubtle... It's so bloody unrealistic and immersion-breaking, how is anyone supposed to take that seriously?! However much genderists cry about it, J.K.Rowling is not considered evil by the majority of people, and Harry Potter has entered the canon of classical children's fiction whether you like it or not. Grow up and get the fuck over it.
Let's be real, most everyone is hateful in the book - though again not precisely in the way the author intended I bet. The trans protags are perverts and psychos - Beth strangles a woman for no reason and laughs while doing it, I kid you not. Robbie says this: If he'd spent his time preparing for anything since the end of the world, shooting a bunch of screaming cis idiots was it. (Add "cisphobia" to the list of offences). Ramona is a pervert and psycho. Teach goes through a "Daenerys Targaryen in Season 08" nonsensical arc-spurt and turns über-evil towards the end as she rips the uterus of a woman out, still alive, to punish betrayal (it doesn't make sense for several reasons, but it doesn't have to I guess). I honestly hoped everyone would die by the end, but the author had to give some plot armour to her protags, duh - even though realistically the military-trained TERFs with actual firearms should've won because that's just freaking logical - just de-power your baddies if you want to make it convincing! 🙄
The TERFs/radfems aren't portrayed accurately at all, they're just made to be cartoonishly evil, yet even then they have very valid reasons to be wary of trans women (world-building in a sec). And the trans characters are huge stereotypes that basically confirm the fears women have about some of them: Beth and Fran are textbook AGPs with unhinged fantasies and questionable boundaries, Robbie is rage-filled and narcissistic. Great trans representation, really?!
4) World-building:
There is none. I'm serious. Nothing makes any fucking sense in this story: elements of the world-building are tweaked and plot contrivances inserted any time the author needs to link up fetish sex scenes, violence or Twitter screeding, and that is it.
- The virus makes no sense (for one it only affects humans). The premise of binding it to testosterone levels fails on so many fronts, and is clearly meant to be a(n offensive at times) proxy for masculinity. The thing is, I recently read a book that explains clearly why it's not a good proxy for masculinity at all, and that sex steroids are much more subtle and complex than we think. We are told that basically all men have succumbed to the virus, except some born after the outbreak. Yet trans women, as long as they get their oestrogen, are safe. But women with PCOS aren't (trans women are more womanly than women with PCOS, it's a well-known fact right? 🙄). The author states that the virus binds to elevated levels of testosterone, and even that a post-op trans woman had zombied out in the past, on television. So how the fuck does that work?! Women with PCOS will never have the levels of testosterone men have. And 75% of trans women cannot get their testosterone levels down to female-typical levels, even with medication! At the very least, Beth and Fran should've cut their testicles off as a security measure, so why didn't they (especially since we learn Fran defo wants bottom surgery)? How the fuck are they still alive, honestly? Also we're told Fran contracted the virus but got better, but it's never mentioned again...
- Here's another kicker: the men affected grow barbs on their dongs (their dicks can also grow up to 11 inches, just because), run on all fours (there's zero reason for this, we are not adapted, skeletally, to run efficiently on all fours) and if they impregnate a woman, a male baby will chew its way out of her womb in three months' time and become sexually mature at 1 year of age. 🤦♀️ But why?! Why would a virus "go" to all this trouble, when it seems it has mostly been airborne until now? Like how did men even start contracting this thing? What's the bloody point of this detail? I mean fuck it the best explanation I've got is that barbed dicks are a fetish for the author (just like rape, check what she's said on the matter if you don't believe me) and the rest is just so it can be shocking/gross for the sake of it. The contempt for men is also very clear, because all of them are reduced to these beasts, and a character suggests that they can now happily rape and murder like they've always wanted deep down. Nice huh?
- The very fact TERFs are a "force" of any kind in a post-apocalyptic world is laughably ridiculous, so are people caring about them and trans rights. Bitch please. People would care about survival, and reproduction in this context. Why is no one searching for a cure? Why is no one researching how to keep the species going? Hell, why aren't the TERFs using trans women as sperm donors rather than prostitutes? Why haven't some men managed to survive by castrating themselves, but without identifying as the opposite sex? I mean that's kind of the case with the sons of the women living in protected zones, but they transgender them, why? Like there's no reason for it, especially since it is TERFs doing it?! Like hello, why would they make trans women and use them as guards? It makes no bloody sense. Nor does calling them Maenads. 🤦♀️ Like for fuck's sake, put some effort into it! Why the hell would radical feminists use a term referring to devotees of a male god, when the Galli, eunuch devotees of the great goddess Demeter, existed too? Nor does using trans women and enbys as prostitutes. Again, for fuck's sake: the TERFs of this book are straw women in the purest sense of the word. It is a well-known fact that radical feminists tend to be very sex-critical, anti-porn, anti-sex work and kink-critical. A polity founded along their beliefs would exclude prostitution! (Not to mention in the real world, women use prostitutes a lot less than men do, but the author doesn't have a good grasp on female psychology, to say the least).
- And they are sympathetic, because fundamentally, they want to protect the women who remain. The author literally gave - and this is once again ironically hilarious - the TERFs an objective and valid reason to fear all trans women. As biological males, they can absolutely zombie-wolf out into raping and killing monsters. The author obviously wanted to poo-poo feminists who wish to defend female-only spaces, but her argument cannot land effectively, because I repeat: women have a very good reason, post t-rex virus, to see all trans women as potential threats. Of course, when Beth is thrown out of her queer-friendly communal house, all she can think of is herself, and doesn't show the least ounce of empathy towards the women who are scared and losing their male relatives left, right and centre. Contrast this to a character in The End of Men who sacrifices her bond to her husband, her need for comfort and reassurance, to try and save her son. Just sayin'.
Conclusion: Have to wrap this up. If a man had written this, hell if a woman had written this, it would've gotten torn to shreds by the Wokesters. In an age when it's cool to shit on Lovecraft, a dude dead almost a century, for his racist views, how the fuck is this book where white women, old women, hell women who are simply guilty of perceived "wrongthink" are endlessly mentioned with contempt and lust-fuelled hatred - because this is nothing but a personal, sexual kink-infused and Twitter-outraged revenge fantasy - not held to the same standard?! Because this is misogyny (and lesbophobia, and misandry, and cisphobia and transphobia) approved by the Woke Left. This was a diversity publication, nothing more. Shame on Tor. (Though hey, should give encouragement to aspiring writers that garbage like this can be published by a reputable publishing house 🤷♀️).
Full video rant review here: https://youtu.be/F5YI7bXmhdg.
Disclaimer: I read this primarily because Normal People was making my grief and depression worse, and I needed some trash to distract my broken heart. So yes, I went in fully expecting this to be bad - though not quite as bad as it turned out to be -, and as an autistic, gender-critical feminist (so technically one of the book's "baddies" lmao) who has this whole debate as one of her very niche special interests. Y'all ready?
I've read my fair share of sex-based plague/power-shift stories over the past couple of years (The Power, The Screwfly Solution, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Y: The Last Man and The End of Men). I've been disappointed about as equally as I've been satisfied by them: what often fails for me is the superficiality of the theming and the flimsiness of the world-building, The Power and The End of Men were especially guilty of that... But holy shit does Manhunt take the cake here.
Manhunt, a text that tries to be a queered up and porned up amalgamation of Y: The Last Man, The Screwfly Solution and The Walking Dead, presents the reader with a world where a pathogen, the t-rex (really? 🙄) virus transforms anyone with high-enough testosterone levels into an über-aggressive, dehumanised hybrid between a zombie and a werewolf that wants to rape, eat and kill (not necessarily in that order) anything that has a hole between their legs. In practice however, that just means men and... pre-op trans women, but not really because mile-wide holes in the world-building. The remaining women and trans people have to survive in a very ugly world where groups of so-called TERFs (never defined for normies of course) have established a matriarchy of some sort and are going around killing the trans women they find for fear of them wolf-zombying out on them. We follow two trans women main characters, Beth and Fran, quickly followed by a trans man, Robbie, their woman friend and hormone supplier Indi, and Ramona, one of the baddies who is actually a chaser who ends up betraying her camp to get some transgendered ass, literally. And... Not much happens, really, that resembles a plot. Random events happen, so that lots of sex (and gross sex) can happen, and then BAM! some final localised showdown between the baddie TERFs and the trans people + allies, with zero consequences for the wider world or the future of said world.
This book is supposed to be the author's answer to the lack of trans representation in the niche genre of "sex-based apocalypse fiction". A) That's not at all what this is, but I'll get back to that; B) It's a flawed premise in the sense trans people are represented, covertly, in that genre - just not in the way some would like. In The End of Men, where the plague latches onto the Y chromosome, trans women exist, but they die along with the men, because they are male humans.
Also, this book is sold as horror, but it honestly felt more like porn to me at times. At the very least it's... I don't know, horror-porn? There is so much pointless, grossly-described sex in this book. To say it's gratuitous is an understatement. Ex: He paused, open mouth full of half-chewed mush. Beth wondered if he breathed through his nose that loud when he sucked cock. 🤦♀️ It's all kinky shit too (no offence to BDSMers, but the specific kind displayed in Manhunt was really not my cup of tea), with power-play involving constant references to "mommies" and "daddies". Fuck's sake! 🤮 In any case the book is certainly not scarier than something like The Walking Dead, nor even as gory. Honestly I was taken aback by the sex, and clear contempt, not to say hatred, that permeated the page, not the relatively mild splattering of body parts implied by this supposedly being "splatterpunk".
1) Plot:
What plot?
No, I mean seriously, what actual plot? Beth and Fran collect testicles to extract oestrogen (like that would actually work, even the crazy fucks who sold testosterone as an elixir of youth back when sex steroids were first discovered would create a solution out of balls and inject it sub-dermally, not eat the gonads raw and let their stomach acids ruin their contents), Robbie saves them from marauding zombie-werewolves (but not before Beth gets graphically anally raped, and mildly gets off on it, of course), then the trio leaves with their bud Indi to go to a bunker held by a crazy rich kid when the TERFs roll into their town, the TERF character fucks a non-binary male prostitute, feels bad about it, leads a hit squad and gets in gud with the leader called Teach, then shit with the bunker goes south, the protags hole up by this old WW II fort and face a final showdown with the TERF army who got themselves a shiny battleship, but not before the chaser TERF betrays her side, ultimately turning the tables and allowing the protags, minus the trans woman Fran, to see another day in this idiotic world the author has created. This thing was so boring at times, filled as it was - in-between the porn and Twitter screeding - with absurd similes, pointless descriptions and emotionless flashbacks.
2) Writing:
The writing was really bad in places, fine in others. But oh my gods the similes... And the repetitions... And the immature, "edgy-because-I-can" language. Did you know fellow readers that a gun shot sounds like a tiny fluffy dog (a bichon frisé, to be exact)? Or that frying something in a pan sounds like small mouths smacking? 🤦♀️ I've also learned that every other person has skin that smells like milk, or that they taste like milk (huh?). Or that zombie-werewolf men would have breath that smells like cum (because that totally makes sense?). Everyone also has stretch marks bloody everywhere.
The word cunt is also used all. The. Bloody. Time. It's not even that it offends me so much, because it doesn't really, it's just that it's so clearly, artlessly meant to be vulgar and edgy - this ain't D.H.Lawrence material folks. And not only do the trans women say cunt all of the time, the women do too, even the American radical feminists who I'm pretty sure loathe the word. Every female refers to their own vulva as a cunt, and refers to other women as bitches and cunts all of the time. #justwomanthings amirite?! 🥴 (Periods are also referenced a suspicious - read fetishistic - amount of times)
Another sin in my book is using the word girl when referring to grown-arse women (or trans women). Because here again it is done all. Of. The. Bloody. Time. To the point where you really do start to wonder if it's not a fetish for the author (because it probably is, as is all of the porn content in the book really). Women in their 30s! All the time! Fuck's sake. Yes women sometimes call each other girls (and I hate it), but absolutely not to the extent the author uses. It is infantilising, disrespectful and gross, especially when plonked into this kind of sentence:
Fuck me so I can feel like a girl. 🤮🤮🤮 Like I'm sorry but who the fuck thinks this kind of thing after having been violently anally raped by a bunch of zombie-werewolves?! It is so freaking disgusting and creepy.
This book will also (quite to the contrary of what the author seems to believe on Twitter) become completely irrelevant in a few years, chock-full as it is with American younger Millennial/Zoomer idpol-wars "discourse" and pop-media references that don't mean jack-shit to the majority of people. And there are multiple, poorly established time-jumps and shit, not that I really cared.
3) Character-work:
This book is misogynistic, absolutely, but it's also lesbophobic, fatphobic (never thought I'd use that word but here we are), a little misandrist too and even, I would argue, transphobic! Yup.
Not only does the author clearly imply, several times, that trans women are not really women (which is considered transphobic these days, yes?), ironically but hilariously enough; she constantly stresses how Beth doesn't pass, how both her and Fran have to prove or acquire their womanhood, because deep down they know they're not really women. She constantly describes trans women characters in very unflattering terms, emphasising their masculine traits. And even more ironically, she made Beth and Fran to be absolute stereotypes, playing right into her ideological opponent's hands. 😂
Beth, Fran (and Robbie too honestly) are unsympathetic, vain, conceited, narcissistic sex pests who only think about the fact they can't fully transition now the Apocalypse has happened, or fucking (popping boners at the same time, #justwomanthings) when they're about to die or kill someone else (no, seriously). Beth also, you know, broke another kid's jaw when she was six, over a toy car, and Robbie both assaulted a teenager with a nail gun at school and committed arson, burning an entire house down when he was younger. Charming, totally not mentally unstable people, right? Like for real, I was supposed to care/root for these creeps? Their virtue-signalling Indian doctor buddy wasn't much better: like how do you remain morbidly obese for five years after an apocalypse if it's not by hoarding food? And that's another thing: the author spends just so much time detailing the obesity of her character, lingering on it in a really unsettling, and quite honestly fetishising way. Gross. But yes Indi converts ball juice into oestrogen, is a fertility specialist but like... Never tries to help out by figuring out a way to keep humans reproducing? No? Can only bitch about white women and thirst, "cunt dripping" as cunts do (not, the author deserves a spot on r/badwomensanatomy, and r/transwomenwritingwomen I guess) after her submissive trans girlfriend. And the betrayer TERF Ramona is also a gross sex pest who calls herself a lesbian but secretly thirsts for transsexual dick (as all lesbians do, n'est-ce pas?).
Even the villains aren't convincing. They're cartoonishly evil, is the problem. Like the head baddie who helms a platoon of TERFs for the Matriarchy of Maryland or some shit, called Teach, used to work at Guantanamo. For real bruh? Oh, she also used to be buds with Janice fucking Raymond. Like anyone outside of this debate is going to fucking know who that even is (no offence to her). It's so bloody irrelevant, not to mention stupid, Jesus! 🤦♀️ It's not as bad as the "Knights of J.K.Rowling" I suppose. Like freaking hell, talk about unsubtle... It's so bloody unrealistic and immersion-breaking, how is anyone supposed to take that seriously?! However much genderists cry about it, J.K.Rowling is not considered evil by the majority of people, and Harry Potter has entered the canon of classical children's fiction whether you like it or not. Grow up and get the fuck over it.
Let's be real, most everyone is hateful in the book - though again not precisely in the way the author intended I bet. The trans protags are perverts and psychos - Beth strangles a woman for no reason and laughs while doing it, I kid you not. Robbie says this: If he'd spent his time preparing for anything since the end of the world, shooting a bunch of screaming cis idiots was it. (Add "cisphobia" to the list of offences). Ramona is a pervert and psycho. Teach goes through a "Daenerys Targaryen in Season 08" nonsensical arc-spurt and turns über-evil towards the end as she rips the uterus of a woman out, still alive, to punish betrayal (it doesn't make sense for several reasons, but it doesn't have to I guess). I honestly hoped everyone would die by the end, but the author had to give some plot armour to her protags, duh - even though realistically the military-trained TERFs with actual firearms should've won because that's just freaking logical - just de-power your baddies if you want to make it convincing! 🙄
The TERFs/radfems aren't portrayed accurately at all, they're just made to be cartoonishly evil, yet even then they have very valid reasons to be wary of trans women (world-building in a sec). And the trans characters are huge stereotypes that basically confirm the fears women have about some of them: Beth and Fran are textbook AGPs with unhinged fantasies and questionable boundaries, Robbie is rage-filled and narcissistic. Great trans representation, really?!
4) World-building:
There is none. I'm serious. Nothing makes any fucking sense in this story: elements of the world-building are tweaked and plot contrivances inserted any time the author needs to link up fetish sex scenes, violence or Twitter screeding, and that is it.
- The virus makes no sense (for one it only affects humans). The premise of binding it to testosterone levels fails on so many fronts, and is clearly meant to be a(n offensive at times) proxy for masculinity. The thing is, I recently read a book that explains clearly why it's not a good proxy for masculinity at all, and that sex steroids are much more subtle and complex than we think. We are told that basically all men have succumbed to the virus, except some born after the outbreak. Yet trans women, as long as they get their oestrogen, are safe. But women with PCOS aren't (trans women are more womanly than women with PCOS, it's a well-known fact right? 🙄). The author states that the virus binds to elevated levels of testosterone, and even that a post-op trans woman had zombied out in the past, on television. So how the fuck does that work?! Women with PCOS will never have the levels of testosterone men have. And 75% of trans women cannot get their testosterone levels down to female-typical levels, even with medication! At the very least, Beth and Fran should've cut their testicles off as a security measure, so why didn't they (especially since we learn Fran defo wants bottom surgery)? How the fuck are they still alive, honestly? Also we're told Fran contracted the virus but got better, but it's never mentioned again...
- Here's another kicker: the men affected grow barbs on their dongs (their dicks can also grow up to 11 inches, just because), run on all fours (there's zero reason for this, we are not adapted, skeletally, to run efficiently on all fours) and if they impregnate a woman, a male baby will chew its way out of her womb in three months' time and become sexually mature at 1 year of age. 🤦♀️ But why?! Why would a virus "go" to all this trouble, when it seems it has mostly been airborne until now? Like how did men even start contracting this thing? What's the bloody point of this detail? I mean fuck it the best explanation I've got is that barbed dicks are a fetish for the author (just like rape, check what she's said on the matter if you don't believe me) and the rest is just so it can be shocking/gross for the sake of it. The contempt for men is also very clear, because all of them are reduced to these beasts, and a character suggests that they can now happily rape and murder like they've always wanted deep down. Nice huh?
- The very fact TERFs are a "force" of any kind in a post-apocalyptic world is laughably ridiculous, so are people caring about them and trans rights. Bitch please. People would care about survival, and reproduction in this context. Why is no one searching for a cure? Why is no one researching how to keep the species going? Hell, why aren't the TERFs using trans women as sperm donors rather than prostitutes? Why haven't some men managed to survive by castrating themselves, but without identifying as the opposite sex? I mean that's kind of the case with the sons of the women living in protected zones, but they transgender them, why? Like there's no reason for it, especially since it is TERFs doing it?! Like hello, why would they make trans women and use them as guards? It makes no bloody sense. Nor does calling them Maenads. 🤦♀️ Like for fuck's sake, put some effort into it! Why the hell would radical feminists use a term referring to devotees of a male god, when the Galli, eunuch devotees of the great goddess Demeter, existed too? Nor does using trans women and enbys as prostitutes. Again, for fuck's sake: the TERFs of this book are straw women in the purest sense of the word. It is a well-known fact that radical feminists tend to be very sex-critical, anti-porn, anti-sex work and kink-critical. A polity founded along their beliefs would exclude prostitution! (Not to mention in the real world, women use prostitutes a lot less than men do, but the author doesn't have a good grasp on female psychology, to say the least).
- And they are sympathetic, because fundamentally, they want to protect the women who remain. The author literally gave - and this is once again ironically hilarious - the TERFs an objective and valid reason to fear all trans women. As biological males, they can absolutely zombie-wolf out into raping and killing monsters. The author obviously wanted to poo-poo feminists who wish to defend female-only spaces, but her argument cannot land effectively, because I repeat: women have a very good reason, post t-rex virus, to see all trans women as potential threats. Of course, when Beth is thrown out of her queer-friendly communal house, all she can think of is herself, and doesn't show the least ounce of empathy towards the women who are scared and losing their male relatives left, right and centre. Contrast this to a character in The End of Men who sacrifices her bond to her husband, her need for comfort and reassurance, to try and save her son. Just sayin'.
Conclusion: Have to wrap this up. If a man had written this, hell if a woman had written this, it would've gotten torn to shreds by the Wokesters. In an age when it's cool to shit on Lovecraft, a dude dead almost a century, for his racist views, how the fuck is this book where white women, old women, hell women who are simply guilty of perceived "wrongthink" are endlessly mentioned with contempt and lust-fuelled hatred - because this is nothing but a personal, sexual kink-infused and Twitter-outraged revenge fantasy - not held to the same standard?! Because this is misogyny (and lesbophobia, and misandry, and cisphobia and transphobia) approved by the Woke Left. This was a diversity publication, nothing more. Shame on Tor. (Though hey, should give encouragement to aspiring writers that garbage like this can be published by a reputable publishing house 🤷♀️).
Shelved as 'dnf'
June 4, 2023i dnf'ed this months ago and never logged it. oh well.
Want to read
September 26, 2021oh god this cover. nightfire knows exactly how to make me want to read a book.
May 10, 2023
too gruesome and i didn't like the graphic violence against women. guess it's my fault, im so not a horror kinda person
March 23, 2023
Lots of thoughts on this one! It’s a nasty, horny, mean little book (affectionate), and it’s got a lot of smart things to say about the volatile and highly conditional nature of cis “allyship.” Felker-Martin is clearly a talented writer who excels at vivid depictions of the grotesque, so I see why she’s drawn to horror. But ultimately I just don’t think this works as a horror novel, because horror needs more than gross shit. Not all horror needs to be piss-your-pants scary, but all horror does need tension! It needs suspense! It needs stakes! And there’s none of that here. It often feels aimless when it should be focused and self-pitying when it should be ruthless, and it’s overall prone to the sort of meandering navel-gazing that’d be more appropriate for a Substack essay than a novel set during a dystopian post-apocalypse.
A lot of people have described this book as cruel, but I don’t think that’s quite the right word. It’s more that it’s powered solely by self-hatred. The frequent head-hopping keeps things moving at a quick clip, but it also exposes how every single character we meet—the manhunters, the loner, the doctor, the TERF—are all motivated and thus united by their unending hatred of themselves. And I get that this is very likely The Point, but it’s exhausting and often uninteresting to read. David Foster Wallace once said “there’s a lot of narcissism in self-hatred,” and yeah, that’s the vibe.
A lot of people have described this book as cruel, but I don’t think that’s quite the right word. It’s more that it’s powered solely by self-hatred. The frequent head-hopping keeps things moving at a quick clip, but it also exposes how every single character we meet—the manhunters, the loner, the doctor, the TERF—are all motivated and thus united by their unending hatred of themselves. And I get that this is very likely The Point, but it’s exhausting and often uninteresting to read. David Foster Wallace once said “there’s a lot of narcissism in self-hatred,” and yeah, that’s the vibe.
March 12, 2023
„Manhunt“ reads like a hallucinatory fever dream that processes the subconscious trauma caused by the adversities trans people face – mind you, this is not intended to be some politically correct rational argument about trans rights, it’s an in-your-face, over-the-top horror revenge tale (and I feel like many negative reviews that talk about misogyny etc. don’t get that, and also don’t get the humor that is the basis of the absurd plot). The book operates with the tropes of extreme horror cinema, namely the graphic notion that humans are meat sacks with bones, which gives the whole thing a certain slaughterhouse aesthetic - and if you find that already quite disturbing, this book probably isn't for you (to quote the author: "I write the most disgusting books in the English language, books about sexual revulsion, about body horror, about how violence forms and fits into our lives.").
Let's have a look at the plot: In a plague-ridden world, people are threatened by a virus that turns everyone with enough testosterone into a cannibalistic monstrosity (the virus is called t.rex, of course). Our protagonists are trans women Beth and Fran, who are trying to fight off both feral men and TERFs who intend to destroy all trans women (which they perceive as disguised men, and thus dangerous). Beth and Fran team up with Robbie, a Native trans man, and Indi, a cis female doctor who knows how to supply estrogen. Together, they roam the postapocalyptic world while fighting against their trauma and for their lives, trying to beat the odds of trans-misogyny, gender dysphoria and social exclusion. Let's not end this round-up without giving a special mention to TERF soldier Ramona, whose career is going increasingly well, her double-life not so much, though.
It should become clear that this plot aims to represent the discourse, but even more, it aims to represent the feeling of being the object of that discourse, to feel helpless and lash out via writing - and it's one of the noblest tasks of literature to make marginalized voices heard, in an artistic form. I find criticism that wants writers to "behave" rather silly. It's their job to create, not to behave.
So what bothered me when reading this was not the reliance on graphic violence, nastiness and obscenity (it's your usual extreme horror), but that the text is overly descriptive (a pet peeve of mine) and that the pacing was so off that it frequently felt like the author connected individually crafted scenes.
Still, I applaud Felker-Martin for this daring text and the many good ideas, even though in the end, they don't quite form a cohesive novel. This is the kind of stuff that would never get nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction, but you know what? It should be nominated, because it's not harmless "look, we're the good ones here" stuff, but seriously challenging to read and has things to say that you can debate over.
Let's have a look at the plot: In a plague-ridden world, people are threatened by a virus that turns everyone with enough testosterone into a cannibalistic monstrosity (the virus is called t.rex, of course). Our protagonists are trans women Beth and Fran, who are trying to fight off both feral men and TERFs who intend to destroy all trans women (which they perceive as disguised men, and thus dangerous). Beth and Fran team up with Robbie, a Native trans man, and Indi, a cis female doctor who knows how to supply estrogen. Together, they roam the postapocalyptic world while fighting against their trauma and for their lives, trying to beat the odds of trans-misogyny, gender dysphoria and social exclusion. Let's not end this round-up without giving a special mention to TERF soldier Ramona, whose career is going increasingly well, her double-life not so much, though.
It should become clear that this plot aims to represent the discourse, but even more, it aims to represent the feeling of being the object of that discourse, to feel helpless and lash out via writing - and it's one of the noblest tasks of literature to make marginalized voices heard, in an artistic form. I find criticism that wants writers to "behave" rather silly. It's their job to create, not to behave.
So what bothered me when reading this was not the reliance on graphic violence, nastiness and obscenity (it's your usual extreme horror), but that the text is overly descriptive (a pet peeve of mine) and that the pacing was so off that it frequently felt like the author connected individually crafted scenes.
Still, I applaud Felker-Martin for this daring text and the many good ideas, even though in the end, they don't quite form a cohesive novel. This is the kind of stuff that would never get nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction, but you know what? It should be nominated, because it's not harmless "look, we're the good ones here" stuff, but seriously challenging to read and has things to say that you can debate over.
Shelved as 'might-get'
February 18, 2023"**People fix your hearts or die. Bind Jesse Singal with strong rope and bring him to the quarry at the edge of town. Give him to us alive and unspoiled. Leave, and no matter the sounds you hear, do not look back." This evoked the same kind of horror in me as this story, A Party Down at the Square. The book is about burning black people, in the book called N*s. The quote, was about **Cis people who if they don't agree with Gretchen Felker-Martin deserve lynching.
Is the world not moving forward in love and kindness and togetherness at all? Has the internet brought more divisiveness when we think it brings us all together, from all four corners of the earth and whatever language we speak?
I'm going to get the book though. I think the author is extreme, I don't agree with them at all, but still it is a work of fiction and many books of fiction, perhaps most are based on what the author knows in real life and works it to fit their story. I'm not going to 1 star it for objectionable views but rate it on how good a book it is.
Is the world not moving forward in love and kindness and togetherness at all? Has the internet brought more divisiveness when we think it brings us all together, from all four corners of the earth and whatever language we speak?
Gretchen Felker-Martin on February 12 tweeted that she wanted to slit the throats of J.K. Rowling and several other authors who've spoken out against gender reassignment procedures for children, or letting trans women access some female-only spaces. One of those she threatened asked how she was able to remain on Twitter.In the book, she had JK Rowling burned alive, but her tweets are more about slitting the throat of anyone she considers transphobic and she names names, Naturally everyone who doesn't agree with her book and tweets is a transphobe.
In the transgender activist's debut novel, Manhunt, published in February 2022, Rowling is murdered. The book is promoted as 'an explosive post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and trans men on a grotesque journey of survival.' According to Twitter's March 2019 policy statement : 'You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence. From the Daily Rag.
I'm going to get the book though. I think the author is extreme, I don't agree with them at all, but still it is a work of fiction and many books of fiction, perhaps most are based on what the author knows in real life and works it to fit their story. I'm not going to 1 star it for objectionable views but rate it on how good a book it is.
November 14, 2022
This was BRUTAL!! And gross, emotional, intense, and so much more. I’m very sad now 😂
February 27, 2022
3.5 Stars
I love that this ownvoices trans story exists. As a cis woman, I did not necessarily connect or understand all of the personal details infused in the book, but I appreciated being exposed to unique challenges of trans persons.
In terms of a horror story, this one was gruesome and unflinching. The author is not afraid of a gritty tale that will likely be most terrifying to those with balls.
My biggest challenge with this novel was a personal one, rather than a criticism of the book. That's the fact that I do not typically enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction. I was hoping the diversity aspect of this story could override my disinterest in the subgenre. Unfortunately, despite the great representation, the story leaned heavily into the tropes of post-apocalyptic fiction… which just is not my thing.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a diverse, queer horror story featuring a group of individuals who underrepresented in fiction.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
I love that this ownvoices trans story exists. As a cis woman, I did not necessarily connect or understand all of the personal details infused in the book, but I appreciated being exposed to unique challenges of trans persons.
In terms of a horror story, this one was gruesome and unflinching. The author is not afraid of a gritty tale that will likely be most terrifying to those with balls.
My biggest challenge with this novel was a personal one, rather than a criticism of the book. That's the fact that I do not typically enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction. I was hoping the diversity aspect of this story could override my disinterest in the subgenre. Unfortunately, despite the great representation, the story leaned heavily into the tropes of post-apocalyptic fiction… which just is not my thing.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a diverse, queer horror story featuring a group of individuals who underrepresented in fiction.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
January 12, 2022
This is the second of two arc books I read this weekend at the same time, and when you see the content of this book, that's why I wanted a palate cleanser romance novel to accompany this book. That is absolutely not to say that this book wasn't good though- in fact I think it's grotesquely and brutally brilliant.
I want to discuss some context to why this book exists before I get into the meat of the review. A lot of post-apocalyptic literature doesn't take trans people into account when they write and build their worlds- which isn't great but not the worst crime either. But also recently there have been a string of gender based post-apocalypse novels that are explicitly written with transphobic dogwhistles at best, and being outright transphobic at worst. Several of those books I requested arc copies to read so I could fairly explain my thoughts on them without giving financial backing to their authors, but each time I was rejected. So I knew I had to jump at this book when I saw the blurb. Horror is not at all my usual genre of fiction, but I felt like this book is going to be important.
Manhunt follows Grace and Fran, two trans women and Robbie, a trans man, as well as some other characters as they all try to survive in a post apocalyptic world in which an ailment affects all people with high amounts of testosterone in their system causing them to go feral. In response to the outbreak a lot of the centralized power becomes openly transphobic and run by TERF organizations and seek to root out all transwomen from the cities leaving Grace, Fran, and Robbie in a lurch for survival.
As I mentioned, this is far from my usual genre of books- but if I was going to read a horror book at any time October seemed fitting.
I really was intrigued by literally all the characters in this book. Grace and Fran had a really interesting relational dynamic of trusting and relying on each other but with hurt feelings and damaged souls tracing back even before the outbreak. I also found the internal torment of characters like Indi and Ramona really compelling. The character work is great in this book.
One thing I found really interesting about this novel is how society has adapted to the apocalypse. Electricity still exists, hell whole cities still exist. Everything has changed but much is also continuing on despite a lifechanging event for literally everyone involved. Many post-apocalyptic stories I've read while still have clusters of people don't quite depict it in this manner and I found that engaging.
The metaphors and messaging of this book are absolutely not subtle. It's going to be hard to read this book and not see explicitly what is happening and how it parallels to current day trans politics and the people trying to destroy our lives. It's often really intense and brutal imagery that can be difficult to read and imagine- but it also felt so real. Felker-Martin did a really great job at showing the translation from this horror story to how discourse is handled today
One thing I was torn about that both took my out of the book emersion at some points, but I totally understand why it exists in the book was the use of modern day language regarding trans politics and terfism. Part of me thinks in a post apocalyptic world such as this one the terminology would have changed. It seemed a little weird to me that the groups were still calling themselves "trans exclusionary radical feminists" in a society with literally no cis men. How much would "feminism" still be a thing in that scenario? But at the same time I feel that using modern day terms really slams the metaphors down and the messages of the book become all the more clear. So I see both sides of it.
This book is brutal and holds back no punches, it's not for everyone- it might not even be for me. But it is an important book and definitely has carved a place for itself. I was super into it. 5/5
Thank you to Macmillan and Netgalley for providing me and ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review
I want to discuss some context to why this book exists before I get into the meat of the review. A lot of post-apocalyptic literature doesn't take trans people into account when they write and build their worlds- which isn't great but not the worst crime either. But also recently there have been a string of gender based post-apocalypse novels that are explicitly written with transphobic dogwhistles at best, and being outright transphobic at worst. Several of those books I requested arc copies to read so I could fairly explain my thoughts on them without giving financial backing to their authors, but each time I was rejected. So I knew I had to jump at this book when I saw the blurb. Horror is not at all my usual genre of fiction, but I felt like this book is going to be important.
Manhunt follows Grace and Fran, two trans women and Robbie, a trans man, as well as some other characters as they all try to survive in a post apocalyptic world in which an ailment affects all people with high amounts of testosterone in their system causing them to go feral. In response to the outbreak a lot of the centralized power becomes openly transphobic and run by TERF organizations and seek to root out all transwomen from the cities leaving Grace, Fran, and Robbie in a lurch for survival.
As I mentioned, this is far from my usual genre of books- but if I was going to read a horror book at any time October seemed fitting.
I really was intrigued by literally all the characters in this book. Grace and Fran had a really interesting relational dynamic of trusting and relying on each other but with hurt feelings and damaged souls tracing back even before the outbreak. I also found the internal torment of characters like Indi and Ramona really compelling. The character work is great in this book.
One thing I found really interesting about this novel is how society has adapted to the apocalypse. Electricity still exists, hell whole cities still exist. Everything has changed but much is also continuing on despite a lifechanging event for literally everyone involved. Many post-apocalyptic stories I've read while still have clusters of people don't quite depict it in this manner and I found that engaging.
The metaphors and messaging of this book are absolutely not subtle. It's going to be hard to read this book and not see explicitly what is happening and how it parallels to current day trans politics and the people trying to destroy our lives. It's often really intense and brutal imagery that can be difficult to read and imagine- but it also felt so real. Felker-Martin did a really great job at showing the translation from this horror story to how discourse is handled today
One thing I was torn about that both took my out of the book emersion at some points, but I totally understand why it exists in the book was the use of modern day language regarding trans politics and terfism. Part of me thinks in a post apocalyptic world such as this one the terminology would have changed. It seemed a little weird to me that the groups were still calling themselves "trans exclusionary radical feminists" in a society with literally no cis men. How much would "feminism" still be a thing in that scenario? But at the same time I feel that using modern day terms really slams the metaphors down and the messages of the book become all the more clear. So I see both sides of it.
This book is brutal and holds back no punches, it's not for everyone- it might not even be for me. But it is an important book and definitely has carved a place for itself. I was super into it. 5/5
Thank you to Macmillan and Netgalley for providing me and ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review
October 15, 2021
I’ve restarted this review more times than I can admit. This book is going to live with me forever, which sure is cliche as fuck to say, but I genuinely mean it. This book is empowering, grotesque, devastating and so utterly captivating that my review won't do this novel any sort of justice.
Manhunt is a post-apocalyptic novel that follows several characters who are trying their absolute best at surviving in a world filled with ravenous men and shit-eating TERFs. We get to meet Fran, Beth, Robbie and Indi, as well as several other characters who, and I promise you, will make you want to throw your book at a wall, either due to how much you love them, or how much you utterly fucking despise them.
As someone who’s been queer for over 15 years, and been out as trans for eleven years, I’ve never came across a dystopian novel that’s...so unapologetic with its queerness, so open and raw, as well as filthy and unforgettable. Sure there’s some queer dystopian novels I’ve read, but nothing like this. I promise you, there is nothing you will find that can be related to this book. I mean, this book hit me like a sack of bricks, it’s the first time that I’ve felt free & unburdened while reading a story surrounding trans characters, it’s the first time that I’ve felt normal while reading trans characters. Maybe that's because I don't read enough books with trans MCs, or it’s the fact that Gretchen did not hold back with her writing, she didn’t shy away from using certain words, or making characters do certain things, fuck me, it was so gods damn validating.
Now, this is something I’ve been raving about since finishing this novel. I want to send a huge thank you to Gretchen, for using the word ‘clit’ for a trans man and all the other ‘dirty’ words throughout this novel. This might seem like a small, odd thing to put in my review, but I remember being a baby queer, using words like ‘mound’ and ‘clit’ for genitals, and being absolutely hounded on for the fact I was using those terms for myself, and how I was phobic for uttering them. It took me quite sometime after the onslaught of online abuse, to gain the courage to start using those terms again. Now that I’m much older, reading Manhunt was like a huge breath of fresh air. Reading words like ‘clit’, ‘cunt’, ‘scrotum’, ‘dick’, ‘anus’ was an absolute joy to see, because let's face it, most book sex scenes suck. I’m tired of the watered down, painfully straight sex scenes in books (and even queer books.) This book has some of the most realest and genuine sex I’ve ever read in a book, and there’s a fuck ton of it.
You know what else there was a fuck ton of? Gore. Pain. Slurs. Transphobia. Love. Found Families. You name it, this book’s got it. It’s a heavy story, filled with things that stuck deep in my chest, that made me seethe, that made me cry, but most of all, made me feel like I belong on this shitty-ass earth.
Manhunt is a ruthless novel that nobody is prepared for. This is going to change horror for the better. This is a dystopian work filled with bloodshed, engaging characters, and showers the reader with trans normality, queer love, diversity and the oppression that one has to suffer through for being true to themselves. Gretchen Felker-Martin has outdone herself with this novel, and I can’t wait to see what else she conjures up in the future.
TWITTER | BLOG | INSTA
Manhunt is a post-apocalyptic novel that follows several characters who are trying their absolute best at surviving in a world filled with ravenous men and shit-eating TERFs. We get to meet Fran, Beth, Robbie and Indi, as well as several other characters who, and I promise you, will make you want to throw your book at a wall, either due to how much you love them, or how much you utterly fucking despise them.
As someone who’s been queer for over 15 years, and been out as trans for eleven years, I’ve never came across a dystopian novel that’s...so unapologetic with its queerness, so open and raw, as well as filthy and unforgettable. Sure there’s some queer dystopian novels I’ve read, but nothing like this. I promise you, there is nothing you will find that can be related to this book. I mean, this book hit me like a sack of bricks, it’s the first time that I’ve felt free & unburdened while reading a story surrounding trans characters, it’s the first time that I’ve felt normal while reading trans characters. Maybe that's because I don't read enough books with trans MCs, or it’s the fact that Gretchen did not hold back with her writing, she didn’t shy away from using certain words, or making characters do certain things, fuck me, it was so gods damn validating.
Now, this is something I’ve been raving about since finishing this novel. I want to send a huge thank you to Gretchen, for using the word ‘clit’ for a trans man and all the other ‘dirty’ words throughout this novel. This might seem like a small, odd thing to put in my review, but I remember being a baby queer, using words like ‘mound’ and ‘clit’ for genitals, and being absolutely hounded on for the fact I was using those terms for myself, and how I was phobic for uttering them. It took me quite sometime after the onslaught of online abuse, to gain the courage to start using those terms again. Now that I’m much older, reading Manhunt was like a huge breath of fresh air. Reading words like ‘clit’, ‘cunt’, ‘scrotum’, ‘dick’, ‘anus’ was an absolute joy to see, because let's face it, most book sex scenes suck. I’m tired of the watered down, painfully straight sex scenes in books (and even queer books.) This book has some of the most realest and genuine sex I’ve ever read in a book, and there’s a fuck ton of it.
You know what else there was a fuck ton of? Gore. Pain. Slurs. Transphobia. Love. Found Families. You name it, this book’s got it. It’s a heavy story, filled with things that stuck deep in my chest, that made me seethe, that made me cry, but most of all, made me feel like I belong on this shitty-ass earth.
Manhunt is a ruthless novel that nobody is prepared for. This is going to change horror for the better. This is a dystopian work filled with bloodshed, engaging characters, and showers the reader with trans normality, queer love, diversity and the oppression that one has to suffer through for being true to themselves. Gretchen Felker-Martin has outdone herself with this novel, and I can’t wait to see what else she conjures up in the future.
TWITTER | BLOG | INSTA
March 12, 2022
I will go into more detail below but wanted to leave a quick spoiler free quip. If you are going into this expecting a fun actiony monster hunt with sharp commentary on the state of our society, you will be disappointed. There is very little actual monster hunting in this book, maybe 5% tops. And the sharp commentary does not go beyond just angry rants, which are cathartic but ultimately do not add to the discussion. If you instead want to read misery porn, and there is a LOT of on page sex and most of it is miserable, because one or both participants are not enjoying themselves, at which point you ask why is this even happening, and some of it venturing into rape territory, then by all means dive in!
June 12, 2021
Weird, horrific books about trans people deserve to be written and read. Speaking frankly, this makes me want to revisit a draft I have lying around...
July 28, 2022
No one needs to write another gender apocalypse novel ever again, this is the definitive one.
March 5, 2022
A post apocalyptic novel following trans women and men in their fight for survival. It’s pretty gruesome and very much a rage piece revenging the treatment of trans people by others, especially by radical feminists. I got what was being said, but I got it early on and it didn’t go far beyond that. The characters stayed very much on the page, and once you have experienced eating one uncooked testicle, I guess you have had enough. Not for me, but one that merits reading.
April 24, 2022
Hmm, Team Slightly Misinformed Tweets, or Team "There Needs To Be More Depictions Of Rape In Fiction, And There's Nothing Wrong With Writing About Graphically Killing Off A Public Figure Who Could Sue Me Into The Stone Age, And Also There's Nothing Wrong With Sending Incest .gifs To Assault Survivors On Twitter, And Also Nothing Wrong With Comparing Trans People Dating TERFs To Holocaust Survivors Fantasizing About Their Camp Guards"?
...yeah, no contest.
Edit: actual transphobes dni
...yeah, no contest.
Edit: actual transphobes dni
July 4, 2023
Imagine if you crossed David Cronenberg's Shivers with Night of the Comet, Deadbeat at Dawn and The Warriors and it was directed by John Waters?
Exactly. I don't know what I just read, but it was filthy, gory and horny. Three of my favourite genres!
I could easily see Manhunt as a super-greasy low-budget zombie flick being released in the 80s and traumatising a bunch of suburban kids who stayed up to 3:00am to watch naughty horror flicks on The First Choice movie network.
Little Billy is sitting on his coach with his Boglin thinking "Oh, this movie is rated R for extreme violence, nudity and sexuality? I'm gonna get to see some bewbs!" And 80 minutes later little Billy and his Boglin are going to bed with a lot of questions and some strange new feelings.
So it goes.
Manhunt is this apocalyptic odyssey where a raging T-Rex virus transforms everybody with a certain level of testosterone into terrifying rage monsters or raging cat-d*ck zombies (cats have barbs on their cawks).
Anyways the newly minted cat-d*ck zombies want to do nothing but take you to pound-town and eat your face. And not necessarily in that order or with your consent. So break out the content warnings and the Scoville ratings and put up signs that say "Here there be dragons", because this book isn't a happy place.
This is a raw-dogging, cat-d*ck babies eating their way out of the womb, Roger Corman, Terror Within place.
If you can't handle the meat, don't get into the abattoir, you know what I'm saying?
And who can stop this wave of cat-d*ck horror? You guessed it: Super horny transgender cannibal ladies! YEAH! Wait. What?
Let me explain. You see, the ladies need their hormones so they don't turn into zombies, so they harvest the estrogen by eating zombie balls. They cook and eat sweet, mouldy, sweaty, stinky, zombie testicles. With extra cheese. DELICIOUS. Tapioca pudding for everybody.
And I mean it when I say these ladies are super horny. They're busting more than Ray Stantz at the Overlook Hotel. They're getting all jammy in their pants even when they're being chased by crazed militant feminists.
That reminds me, the heroic transgender nut-crunchers don't just have to deal with those barbedwire d*ck monsters, they also gotta deal with a motorcycle riding army of angry cross-bow shooting feminists! Holy She-Wolf of the SS, Batman. Super draconian evil feminists in an apocalyptic zombie future? Normally Jerry Falwell types would be flocking to this book like it was cocaine on fried chicken. But the story has all that man-eating, transgender sex! And that stuff repels a Falwell type like holding a crucifix to a vampire.
This book has something to piss off everybody. Most men on the planet have become literal raging edge-lords with hooks on their penises. I'm sure that will go over well. Delicate Disney-soccer moms looking for 'nice representation' who scream in terror at any kind of fiction that's darker than an episode of Barney the Dinosaur are going to react to this book like they got french-kissed by a Lickitung. We already discussed those Jerry Falwell types. And there's even gonna be angry feminists. So I guess this book is designed to piss off absolutely everybody! Who's the audience for this novel?
Well me, for starters. Because I liked it.
Which might shock some people, or it might not. On one side I'm a notorious gore freak, on the other hand I'm a delicate snow-flower. I'm the apex of sensitive horror weirdos. I write heart-felt eulogies for my cats and spend 8 hours discussing the intricate mythology of Iris Murdoch books. Sure I laughed my way through American Psycho, but I also cried at the end of Dirty Dancing. Shut up. Stop laughing.
The thing is, I grew up with books and movies just like Manhunt. I still have perfect condition versions of Chas. Balun's Deep Red magazine and GoreZone. I speak fluent greasy trash. And the one thing a lot of greasy trashy writing and cinema has in common is that...it's all kinda sweet. That despite its rough exterior, buried deep underneath its vicious and gory, pornographic shell there's this huge amount of vulnerability. And I think a lot of people miss that. They fall for the angry routine and they don't see anything else. They just get caught up in the superficial. Often the angrier and more outrageous the work, the bigger and softer the heart it's trying to protect. See: Jack Ketchum. Yeah, his books are more violent than a Thanksgiving debate between a drunk Uncle and a teenage vegan. But underneath that anger and shock value, there's poetry.
Manhunt is no different.
Manhunt has this constant feeling of being incomplete. Of losing a chance to really be yourself. And finding it again in other people who understand you. It's about the unfairness of having to live in a world that's out to brutalise you for being different. Characters sink into each other's arms and cry and want to screw, just to feel like people. Because that has been taken away from them.
It's terrible to live in a world where you gotta earn every single inch of your humanity.
Manhunt is a filthy, dirty, nasty, gory, brutal story about surviving. I had some problems with the prose, it goes from being poetic to a little too blunt. Sometimes it works, sometimes it comes off a bit choreographed. The characters are vivid in some scenes and in other scenes they're written like a chore. They'll stand out and then blend together and it especially hurts the action sequences. But what Manhunt has got going for it, what stands out about the story, really affected me.
In a lot of ways the bigger issues in Manhunt mirror the conflict between Ben and the zombies in Night of the Living Dead and the bleak 'rescue' at the end of the original and the Tom Savini remake. It calls to mind that these stories aren't just about monsters and death and gore. It's about the horrible things we do to the people that we dehumanise.
And yeah. I feel that.
Exactly. I don't know what I just read, but it was filthy, gory and horny. Three of my favourite genres!
I could easily see Manhunt as a super-greasy low-budget zombie flick being released in the 80s and traumatising a bunch of suburban kids who stayed up to 3:00am to watch naughty horror flicks on The First Choice movie network.
Little Billy is sitting on his coach with his Boglin thinking "Oh, this movie is rated R for extreme violence, nudity and sexuality? I'm gonna get to see some bewbs!" And 80 minutes later little Billy and his Boglin are going to bed with a lot of questions and some strange new feelings.
So it goes.
Manhunt is this apocalyptic odyssey where a raging T-Rex virus transforms everybody with a certain level of testosterone into terrifying rage monsters or raging cat-d*ck zombies (cats have barbs on their cawks).
Anyways the newly minted cat-d*ck zombies want to do nothing but take you to pound-town and eat your face. And not necessarily in that order or with your consent. So break out the content warnings and the Scoville ratings and put up signs that say "Here there be dragons", because this book isn't a happy place.
This is a raw-dogging, cat-d*ck babies eating their way out of the womb, Roger Corman, Terror Within place.
If you can't handle the meat, don't get into the abattoir, you know what I'm saying?
And who can stop this wave of cat-d*ck horror? You guessed it: Super horny transgender cannibal ladies! YEAH! Wait. What?
Let me explain. You see, the ladies need their hormones so they don't turn into zombies, so they harvest the estrogen by eating zombie balls. They cook and eat sweet, mouldy, sweaty, stinky, zombie testicles. With extra cheese. DELICIOUS. Tapioca pudding for everybody.
And I mean it when I say these ladies are super horny. They're busting more than Ray Stantz at the Overlook Hotel. They're getting all jammy in their pants even when they're being chased by crazed militant feminists.
That reminds me, the heroic transgender nut-crunchers don't just have to deal with those barbedwire d*ck monsters, they also gotta deal with a motorcycle riding army of angry cross-bow shooting feminists! Holy She-Wolf of the SS, Batman. Super draconian evil feminists in an apocalyptic zombie future? Normally Jerry Falwell types would be flocking to this book like it was cocaine on fried chicken. But the story has all that man-eating, transgender sex! And that stuff repels a Falwell type like holding a crucifix to a vampire.
This book has something to piss off everybody. Most men on the planet have become literal raging edge-lords with hooks on their penises. I'm sure that will go over well. Delicate Disney-soccer moms looking for 'nice representation' who scream in terror at any kind of fiction that's darker than an episode of Barney the Dinosaur are going to react to this book like they got french-kissed by a Lickitung. We already discussed those Jerry Falwell types. And there's even gonna be angry feminists. So I guess this book is designed to piss off absolutely everybody! Who's the audience for this novel?
Well me, for starters. Because I liked it.
Which might shock some people, or it might not. On one side I'm a notorious gore freak, on the other hand I'm a delicate snow-flower. I'm the apex of sensitive horror weirdos. I write heart-felt eulogies for my cats and spend 8 hours discussing the intricate mythology of Iris Murdoch books. Sure I laughed my way through American Psycho, but I also cried at the end of Dirty Dancing. Shut up. Stop laughing.
The thing is, I grew up with books and movies just like Manhunt. I still have perfect condition versions of Chas. Balun's Deep Red magazine and GoreZone. I speak fluent greasy trash. And the one thing a lot of greasy trashy writing and cinema has in common is that...it's all kinda sweet. That despite its rough exterior, buried deep underneath its vicious and gory, pornographic shell there's this huge amount of vulnerability. And I think a lot of people miss that. They fall for the angry routine and they don't see anything else. They just get caught up in the superficial. Often the angrier and more outrageous the work, the bigger and softer the heart it's trying to protect. See: Jack Ketchum. Yeah, his books are more violent than a Thanksgiving debate between a drunk Uncle and a teenage vegan. But underneath that anger and shock value, there's poetry.
Manhunt is no different.
Manhunt has this constant feeling of being incomplete. Of losing a chance to really be yourself. And finding it again in other people who understand you. It's about the unfairness of having to live in a world that's out to brutalise you for being different. Characters sink into each other's arms and cry and want to screw, just to feel like people. Because that has been taken away from them.
It's terrible to live in a world where you gotta earn every single inch of your humanity.
Manhunt is a filthy, dirty, nasty, gory, brutal story about surviving. I had some problems with the prose, it goes from being poetic to a little too blunt. Sometimes it works, sometimes it comes off a bit choreographed. The characters are vivid in some scenes and in other scenes they're written like a chore. They'll stand out and then blend together and it especially hurts the action sequences. But what Manhunt has got going for it, what stands out about the story, really affected me.
In a lot of ways the bigger issues in Manhunt mirror the conflict between Ben and the zombies in Night of the Living Dead and the bleak 'rescue' at the end of the original and the Tom Savini remake. It calls to mind that these stories aren't just about monsters and death and gore. It's about the horrible things we do to the people that we dehumanise.
And yeah. I feel that.
October 21, 2021
3.5
Manhunt isn't for everybody- and hell, it's probably not for me. Please note that my rating should not affect you picking this book up if it speaks to you. At the end of the day I just wasn't super engaged with the plot or characters, but I do want to make a case for picking this up.
Gretchen Felker-Martin is a skilled splatterpunk author and a trans woman. Manhunt is a post-apocalyptic nightmare fever dream loosely skinned as a metaphor for how trans women are treated by radical feminists. This book is personal and cuts deep. There were times I felt very invasive reading it. Though it is a scifi/speculative story, so much of the author's personal rage and feelings bleed through these pages.
In some ways, you need to accept how over the top Manhunt is it to get it. The scenarios and behaviors of the characters are pretty beyond "realistic", but again, they are mirroring the trans experience as a whole, largely online. If the apocalypse happened, would massive gangs of TERFs enslave and murder trans women and build a society where there is almost a single-minded goal of hating them? Probably not....but just look online. Look at the way radfems behave towards trans women. The emotional and verbal violence inflicted on trans women online is presented as physical here.
This book is gory. There's sex and death. There are scenes of shock. There is a lot of transphobia depicted. There are trans people fighting for their lives.
The characters didn't really do it for me, but I do think that they were interested in that they were nearly all trans and nearly all morally grey. These characters experience a LOT of dysphoria and pain. They aren't always behaving perfectly. They aren't always charitable to each other.
More important than the characters, however, are the antagonists. All died hair, piercing clad women that talk a LOT about women's liberation. White feminism is lampooned in a huge, cathartic way Gretchen Felker-Martin spares no punches when laying into this particular brand of feminism.
I think the characters failed to interest me a little outside of what they meant to the message, and I did not particularly care about their adventure or relationships. All that said, there are going to be some people. particularly trans women, who NEED this book. This is the angry rage monster that every trans girl deserves. I strongly recommend picking this one up.
Manhunt isn't for everybody- and hell, it's probably not for me. Please note that my rating should not affect you picking this book up if it speaks to you. At the end of the day I just wasn't super engaged with the plot or characters, but I do want to make a case for picking this up.
Gretchen Felker-Martin is a skilled splatterpunk author and a trans woman. Manhunt is a post-apocalyptic nightmare fever dream loosely skinned as a metaphor for how trans women are treated by radical feminists. This book is personal and cuts deep. There were times I felt very invasive reading it. Though it is a scifi/speculative story, so much of the author's personal rage and feelings bleed through these pages.
In some ways, you need to accept how over the top Manhunt is it to get it. The scenarios and behaviors of the characters are pretty beyond "realistic", but again, they are mirroring the trans experience as a whole, largely online. If the apocalypse happened, would massive gangs of TERFs enslave and murder trans women and build a society where there is almost a single-minded goal of hating them? Probably not....but just look online. Look at the way radfems behave towards trans women. The emotional and verbal violence inflicted on trans women online is presented as physical here.
This book is gory. There's sex and death. There are scenes of shock. There is a lot of transphobia depicted. There are trans people fighting for their lives.
The characters didn't really do it for me, but I do think that they were interested in that they were nearly all trans and nearly all morally grey. These characters experience a LOT of dysphoria and pain. They aren't always behaving perfectly. They aren't always charitable to each other.
More important than the characters, however, are the antagonists. All died hair, piercing clad women that talk a LOT about women's liberation. White feminism is lampooned in a huge, cathartic way Gretchen Felker-Martin spares no punches when laying into this particular brand of feminism.
I think the characters failed to interest me a little outside of what they meant to the message, and I did not particularly care about their adventure or relationships. All that said, there are going to be some people. particularly trans women, who NEED this book. This is the angry rage monster that every trans girl deserves. I strongly recommend picking this one up.
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