A stunning, terrifying account of the ways in which fascism infects every facsimile of society, and the historical rot of imperialist countries that only contributes to present-day turmoil. While Rumfitt makes clever allusions to legendary horror and suspense writers like Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier, this book marks her rise as an exciting new voice in horror and queer fiction. This is an intense, deeply disturbing read, so I deeply appreciate her providing a content warning at the beginning of the book.

Ok, soooo I’m struggling with this one. The first thing I’ll say is read the trigger warnings included at the beginning of this book carefully. And know the topics mentioned do show up in pretty brutal ways. Brutal is kind of the perfect word to describe this book. The plot is essentially three girls break into a haunted house, and the events of that night leave one trapped inside, and the other two hating each other. However, this story isn’t told linearly, and is also told through multiple perspectives, including the perspective of the house itself. I think my favorite parts of this book weren’t even about the main characters. I liked the random chapters about people who encountered the house and the various ways it corrupted and brought out the evil inside them. I loved the central idea, that the house itself is an evil entity, a tumor representing all the evils of Britain, that fuels fascism and hatred in the country and keeps that hatred alive. That’s a really cool idea. That being said, this book had some scenes that were just so brutal to read, that I can’t really say I enjoyed this book. I have no idea how I really feel about this honestly. I liked so many aspects of this but others are so brutal and dark I don’t ever want to revisit it. This is certainly not a book for everyone, and I think it’ll put a lot of people off. But there are glimmers here that are really interesting and thought-provoking. I would say check it out, but please please pay attention to the trigger warnings if those topics are even a little bit triggering to you, skip this.

Thank you NetGalley, Tor Nightfire, and Alison Rumfitt for the advanced copy of Tell Me I'm Worthless.

I unfortunately decided to DNF this one at about 25%. It's a classic case of "it's not you, it's me." The writing style is a bit too literary for my taste and I just couldn't really grasp anything that was happening.

As is always the case for me, I will not review this on any platform aside from NetGalley, as I don't feel it's fair to do without finishing.

Thanks to Netgalley and Tor for e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

God. I don't really know where to start with this book? In the hands of a far less capable author, it would have been a mess. Too many ideas, tied together poorly. But something about Rumfitt's style and understanding of what she wanted to say made it all work like a gorgeously constructed machine. While it's less supernatural horror in some places, and more a discussion of very real lived horrors, the tie between the supernatural and the real is executed brilliantly. Fascism as a haunted house that the characters must live in and survive produces a really stunning overarching structure for an incredibly potent bit of storytelling.

I also adored all of the nods and riffs on classic haunted house stories in this -- the way they were used felt less like re-iterating the ideas of previous stories and more like nods to the audience to show that the author both knows the genre she's working with, and is excited to take it down new routes.

Genuinely, I am going to be thinking about this book So Much over the next few days.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 rounded up to 4 stars.

Spoilers ahead. I will not reveal anything big - most of the review vaguely alludes to plot, structure, and characters.

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I loved the idea of ghosts not being the traditional specters in this book. I truly believe that energy can sort of stain a place, so this premise really grabbed me. It plays off of the idea of the haunted house trope really well in most parts, and the House chapters were by far my favorite parts of the book. I did feel like a lot of the discussion on current culture of oppression and false oppression (cancel culture etc) lacked a lot of nuance. That lack of nuance and subtlety there really lessened the impact for me. On top of that, the characters with the most destructive and toxic worldviews seem to be the most developed and given the most time to express themselves, with is so counterintuitive to the point of the book (or my perceived point of the book, at least) is baffling.

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Again, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Jesus fucking christ. This is another one of those horror novels you're going to be hearing a lot about, especially as this is due to come out in January, and you could do far worse than to start out your year by reading this. Rumfitt links facism, haunted houses, trauma, TERFs, and the lived trans experience all together deftly in what can best be described as a slowly unfolding scream from the pit of your soul, because you can see what's coming and you're powerless to stop any of it from happening. It's also going to make a lot of people deeply uncomfortable with themselves, which, good. There is a content warning in this, and yes, it's incredibly accurate to what happens, and I really don't feel the need to expand on it. But you get, for fun, Rumfitt riffing on the Yellow Wallpaper, The Bloody Chamber, and Shirley Jackson while also letting you feel the full grasping horror of what it is these girls have found themselves caught in. The ending is also just a fucking gut punch and a half. Just pick this up, put your preorder in, get your library to get it, and let it happen.

this book just wasn't for me. I really should have just DNF'd, but I kept hoping that something was going to click with me and the story but it didn't. I did however like the scenes from the house's POV. I wish we could have gotten more of that.

Because I read for escapism and this book deals heavily with social and political themes, this was really not the book for me. I enjoyed the horror aspects well enough but the bricks of text that went on tangents really pulled me out of the story. I know some people will really enjoy this book and that is awesome. But it just wasn’t what I was looking for in a reading experience.

(3.5 stars)
While I did enjoy the story within this book and the topics that were discussed, the writing style just wasn't my favorite so that's why I've given it 3.5 stars. I find it difficult to read big chunks of writing with no breaks but that's just a personal opinion. This author can WRITE. The descriptions in this book were phenomenal - especially since a lot of it was descriptions about stuff you didn't want to envision in your head. There's good deal of body horror in this book and it's written in such a way that you can't help but picture it in great detail. The story itself has a lot of layers and there's a lot of different things being said within it. I think this would make for a good book club book because there's so much to discuss about it. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for future publications by Rumfitt.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Tell Me I’m Worthless was one of the most unique reading experiences I’ve had. I started the book feeling unsure about the explicit yet poetic writing style. I put the book down about a third of the way in, unsure if I would pick it up again. Thank goodness I did because I ended up finishing the rest of the book in that second sitting.

I agree with a GR reviewer when they say this book is a “21st century twist on a haunted house story with nods to goth, horror, and punk”. There is a lot of relevant social commentary (at times a bit much, maybe) and I thought the haunted house storyline and metaphor was fascinating and so well done. There is so much depth to this story.

At times, the narrative and inner dialogue of these characters was a lot to handle. Between these excerpts, there was hint of a 5 star book. But all of the sex/party talk just isn’t my thing and it affected my overall feelings about the book. Even though I have mixed feelings, I’d still recommend this to the right readers. This is one of those books that is more of an experience and will stick with readers for a long time. I know I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.

This is a haunted house story unlike anything I've ever read before, it's not conventionally scary, its violent and bleak but it also pushes boundaries and is powerful in the messages it delivers.
This is not the type of book I actively seek out with such strong political themes, it is a lot to take in but I did enjoy the book as much as one could, it will stay with me for a while. There are so many layers within book full of heavy topics and trauma, it makes you take pause and really think about what you've read.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tor Nightfire, and Alison Rumfitt for sharing the digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my authentic review.

Tell Me I'm Worthless, to paraphrase Whitman, contains multitudes. I scarcely know where to begin. The novel deals with gender identity, fascism, horror, mental illness, imperialism, capitalism, sexism, racism and people who pay money to be told they're worthless. Did I leave anything out? Probably.

At first, I thought Alice was mentally ill. Her rock-star poster likes to insult her, and her bedroom walls enjoy closing in. But several people together usually don't hallucinate the same things, which is where the horror comes in. A house, not haunted but a living creature itself, consumes the minds of the three major characters. Then it does worse.

Several times in the book there are run-on sentences that go on for pages. I understand this is an entirely different kind of novel, never-the-less, the run-on sentences become annoying. I'm knocking a star off for this. There's a reason run-on sentences are considered hard to read.

Blood, gore, brutal sex, torture, self-doubt and confusion. There is no letup. There is no moment of repose. There is no happy ending. A book for horror fans who like the blood to splatter.

Thank you to Tor/Forge and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review Tell Me I'm Worthless.

I loved that parts that flowed smoothly with regular narration (regular like continuous rather than normal). There were quite a few parts that were just run on and on and on sentences that made my eyes swim, and I couldn't figure out what the point was unless that was the point was the disorientation?
It was an interesting story overall: three girls enter an abandoned (and haunted) house, only two leave. Alice, a transwoman, is getting higher and drunker every day to avoid thinking about the horror that happened to her in the house and the very real ghosts that followed her out. Ila is spending all of her time disparaging Alice and transwomen as a newly "out" TERF to avoid her own horrors. They went in the house loving each other and have hated each other with an intense passion ever since.
But now the house is calling, and it wants them back. They go back under the pretense that they are looking for Hannah, the girl who never left the house. They are really there for the house to finish what it started.
I think my favorite part was how the house was an evil entity born of evil done to the land it occupies and extending throughout time. It was a house while Alice and Ila knew it, and later when the house is gone it will be something else. All of the characters are connected throughout time and the evil of the house.
Overall, I would recommend. I will definitely look for Alison Rumfitt's next work. I only worry that I wasn't smart enough to get every aspect of this book and missed some important parts.
However, I wouldn't say this is horror in the bloody gore sense (though it has plenty of that) but more of a realistic, promise of a horrible dystopia horror.

DNF @ 15% - will not be included in my 2022 reading challenge.

Much too political and the gratuitous sex is turning my stomach. I read a very informative review that told me all that I need to know about this novel, it gets even more disturbing and disgusting, so I don't have to suffer through it any longer. Anyone have some brain bleach?

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for my complimentary copy.

"The House circles her like a panther. It wants to kiss her, deep and wet, push its tongue between her lips."

This is a difficult title to review, honestly, because while it's billed as horror and published by Tor, I would group it much more under the literary/experimental label than any other genre. It's also a book that may or may not be of interest ten years down the road; it's so loaded with references to current pop culture and politics, someone reading it in 2032 would probably be lost. This is the kind of book where I read it and think "this author spends a LOT of time online," which may or may not be a selling point for some. It isn't for me.

But I don't know! Maybe for people more plugged into the circles where this book is set (inasmuch as it's set anywhere; it's very stream-of-consciousness, very cerebral, with an abundance of metaphors and tangents that don't really serve any purpose except for furthering the author's - actually I don't even know if I should call it a political agenda. It's more an accounting of the current political state of Britain and a statement about fascism, but I don't know what that statement is beyond "we hate what we fear." Which is not an especially new or original idea. That's not to say there's no value in it, but I personally didn't find the experience especially enlightening. It's a book that wallows in the worst of humanity, piling on shock after shock, doing things like inserting three straight pages of a comment left on a camgirl stream or having a rapist carve "arbeit macht frei" on a Jewish woman's stomach. It's upsetting, at first, but the constant barrage eventually numbs the reader to the horror, and once that's happened, the only thing left is the author's stylistic flourishes. I'm sure this book can find an audience, but I'm not entirely sure what that audience is.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Macmillan-Tor/Forge and #NetGalley. Thank you to the publishers, NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

Intriguing and intense read full of suspense.

this was one of my most anticipated books of the year but sadly it wasn’t for me. there’s a good story hidden here but you have to go through lots of rambling type of writing in huge paragraphs. I’m still giving it a 3 star rating bc i do really appreciate the trans representation here and we need more of it even if this particular book wasn’t my vibe.

This is a stunning, intense AF book. I'm so grateful to the author for the content warning at the beginning, for a sufficient bracing for this VERY disturbing, deeply depressing, but utterly necessary reading experience.

Give me a haunted house story but make it heavy on political and social themes. Conceptually, this was an important read and addressed so many alarming realities and prejudices. The haunted house being called Albion and a symbolic representation of England was particularly clever on Rumfitt's part. I appreciated the story opening with trigger warnings because this book is not for the faint of heart and it is extremely disturbing. Books of this nature should only ever be disturbing and make the reader uncomfortable, so bravo, Rumfitt, Mission accomplished. Consider me disturbed. I've been thinking about this book a lot since I finished it, mentally sifting through what I liked and disliked. I really enjoyed the first half but, as a whole, I think the book could've been better. I enjoyed the layers and depth this haunted house story had and how it deviated from the norm, but I don't think it was necessarily original. My favorite chapter was Hannah's chapter and learning about the history of the house and the horrors that unfolded there. I found everything about the house in general to be terrifying and well-executed. Now for what I didn't love. I was not a fan of the interchanging use of first-, second-, and third-person narrative. While I'm sure Rumfitt had a reason for doing this, it just didn't make for a seamless reading experience for me. I also prefer an implicit read as opposed to an explicit one, and this was very much explicit in delivering its message. So, while I found this all to be a decent read, I just wasn't a huge fan of the writing style. This might be a case of a book just not being for me, but I totally recommend looking into this if you enjoy horror with political and social commentary.

Capitalism is f’ed up. TERFs are f’ed up. Haunted houses are f’ed up. But which is/are real? Really real?
The symbolism is a bit heavy handed but you can’t deny that the author made her points, and that these points absolutely have to be made in 2022. I hope this author isn’t just preaching to the choir and she’s able to get more people exposed to her ideas. I’ll definitely be looking for her next work.