Okay, this was CREEPY! I don't think I was expecting this to be so dark and twisted? It held a certain kind of horror and violence that I'm not completely used to reading. I really liked the haunted house aspect of this story. If you want something that'll keep you up at night, I would say this is one is for you!

Tell Me I'm Worthless is a fantastic nod to Shirley Jackson while being its own novel. The story is incredibly compelling, exhausting, and important. The concept of telling this story from the 3-4 different perspectives was fascinating and I loved the use of an evil house to best anthropomorphize fascism and continued hatred/bigotry toward others.

I finally finished this book last night. I am so shocked and floored. This is the best thing I’ve read in quite a long time. Alison’s writing style is so poetic, chaotic, and piercing. I was hooked immediately.

I enjoyed this book it was good. I enjoyed the writing style and the characters. I enjoyed the plot and goes the book went.

To begin this review, I wanted to personally thank all of the trigger warnings ahead of the book, I knew it would be heavy. However, something about this was just lacking for me. I know everyone enjoyed this book, but the writing style wasn't for me. It honestly took me a while to pick this back up.

The cover is stunning, and that alone pulled me in. The book sounded amazing, but for me, it just didn't personally work.

I want to personally thank NetGalley, as well as the author, publisher, and anyone else involved in providing copies, for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Reviews will also be submitted to Goodreads.

It took me awhile to finish this book, which isn’t typical of me nor is it an indication that I didn’t enjoy it. On the contrary, I loved this book so much that I savored every word. Rumfitt managed to create a truly scary haunted house story set in a truly scary world. While the supernatural aspect of the story may be unbelievable, the terrifying world it has been placed in is not, which is why it’s so scary. The juxtaposition of supernatural horror and the depravity of the world we all very much live in right now is powerful. The exaggerated vulgarity of some of the language used, especially when describing certain sexual situations and the inner workings of some of the more evil characters was perfectly used to really highlight the social commentary and drive the point home. A brilliant novel. I cannot wait to devour her next book.

Went into this blind and im in disbelief! It read like a fever dream. It’s quite graphic and haunting, written very well. Such a complex story, covering so much. I’ll have to read it again.

Thanks to NetGalley for eARC.

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alice and Romford is a powerful and dark horror novel that explores the lives of two women who drift apart after a breakup. One of them is a trans woman who spirals into depression and self-hatred, while the other becomes involved with a radical feminist group that espouses transphobia and fascism. The book is a brilliant analysis of the links between oppression, violence, and identity, and how they affect the human psyche. The author is a trans woman herself, and she writes with authenticity and sensitivity about the struggles and traumas of her characters. I was deeply moved and disturbed by this book, and I think it deserves more attention and praise. It’s not an easy read, but it’s a rewarding one. I would give it four and a half stars out of five, and I highly recommend it to fans of horror and social commentary.

Wow. This destroyed me several times over. I had to read it in small chunks because it is quite the story to dissect and there’s a lot to chew on. Timely and haunting.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Selling Pitch:
Do you want to read a purposely disturbing and deeply uncomfortable book that tackles race and gender from a lens of horror? Do you want a book that’s more about a general feeling of unease than structured plot? Do you want a book chock full of queer body horror and sexual violence?

Pre-reading:
The cover is so pretty. Katie Colson sent me here and somehow I got an ARC for the re-release of it.

Thick of it:
This is super dark.

Foxes at bins makes me think of Fleabag.

Holy misogyny, woof.

That's the day after my sister’s birthday.

Good illustration of how some TERF’s real fear is being raped and how it’s people who rape that are the problem, not specific communities of people.

I'm glad her parents disagree with her.

autogynephilia

Post-reading:
Besties, I don’t know what I just read. It’s definitely horrific and disturbing and deeply uncomfortable. I think I read this book with a permanent crease to my brow. I don’t really know if it had meaning or plot? I weirdly liked the experience? But I don’t know if I would recommend it to others just based on the content. It’s very queer femme horror. I don’t think it’s universal horror. It reads incoherent at times with all of the sentence fragments. Just screeching. Which is probably a bit of the point, but it’s hard to make that a story rather than a feeling. The blurb is NOTHING- and I mean nothing-like the book. I thought I was getting a haunted house adventure. Not so much. It’s more a book about gender and race through the lens of a hateful, malignant entity. That entity just happens to be a house. I think? I can’t tell if we were supposed to think the house was built over some wicked evil people’s dead bodies and that’s why it became so awful, or if it was just a magnet for awful people from the get-go. (But then I struggle with what would make it awful from the get-go because I’m a creature of reason and don’t understand magic or paranormal as an explanation.) I struggle with the ending too because I think Ila is an awful person. I think Alice might be too. You know like they’re not a couple I rooted for. I feel like I’ve also missed quite a bit of it by not knowing the literary references that it’s making. Like I haven’t read any of those stories. Also, they were bad people before they went into the house. That’s what I’m really hung up on. I never liked any of the characters, so it was hard to feel anything distinct when they were tortured, but then they also somehow get a happy ending? I don’t know if I would define the ending as a happy ending, but it comes across like it should be taken as a happy one.

I don’t know. I’m very torn. The concept that a house hangs onto the energy and mindsets of its past occupants and then infects its current occupants with those feelings is fascinating and horrific, especially when previous occupants were the worst of the worst with misogyny and racism and what have you. Like that I dig. Give me the story of someone moving in who’s relatable to the book’s reading audience. Make them forgivably problematic. And then warp them. Make it seem like the house has ruined them. Then make it obvious that the house hasn’t done anything. Those damnable traits were always there just lurking beneath the surface from the moment you met that character Give me that book.

This is distinctly not that book. It suggests important conversations and ideas but I don’t think we fully discussed them. I get that it’s a horror book, but it tips into gratuitous territory when it comes to its depictions of sexual violence. And quite frankly, it’s either too inaccessible to its audience or I’m far too stupid to understand it fully. And that annoys me because I want to get it.

Who should read this:
Queer horror fans
Gender commentary fans

Do I want to reread this:
Maybe? I’d like to reread it to see if I understand it better, but I’m not in any rush.

Similar books:
* Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca-queer horror
* American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis-social commentary on privileged boys and misogyny and racisms that is also psychological horror
* Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-campy, femme horror

Whoa, I do not trigger easily so if you do, BEWARE! Otherwise this inclusive novel gave me the heebie-jeebies and had me perpetually coming back for more. I loved the way it was written and how the characters presented themselves.

A great surreal horror! It was written well and easy to read despite the intentional ramblings towards the end. One of the best haunted house stories I've read. Very sexually graphic, which isn't everyone's cup of tea, but overall I enjoyed it!

“They were your eyes — weren’t they, House?”


Random comprehensive thoughts because I don’t know where or who I am rn help (mild spoilers):

I had to pause listening to this book several times to open this app and re-read the book’s description because I kept thinking wait - what am I reading again?

I really hate rape as a horror trope. I really really hate nazis and holocaust imagery as a horror trope.

I understand the commentary and a lot of it is very relevant - especially when the author goes into what is happening in England and Italy as we speak.

Nicky Enders is an incredible narrator and I need everything they’ve ever read in my ears immediately! If you’re going to read this book please please please go the audio route. I BEG you.

I feel like there’s some commentary I’m not educated or qualified to speak on due to not having certain lived experiences or ancestral knowledge..but some things just rubbed me a way that felt a bit off and uncomfortable. Maybe I was just over sensitive due to all of the holocaust imagery. It just felt strange to me to invent a woman of color character who is Jewish just to have her being a violent terf, r*ped multiple times, possibly be a r*pist, and have holocaust imagery carved into her body, and it turns out he is actually a trans man. Then to hear Alice’s racist and classist thoughts as she still worshipped a morrissey shaped demon with its eyes blackened out. It was all dreadful. The author pulls herself out of her writing to let us know that she is not projecting herself into these character and that this is simply just happening as if she is the poetic reporter. This is the influence of the house..the haunting. It still was her writing invented from her mind.

Alison Rumfitt is an incredible author and really knows how to write a haunting that is felt through the pages. I hope to read something with less nazi and rape torture horror by her soon. By less I mean none, please.

I’m certainly going to be thinking about this book for a v long while.

DNF I loved the cover but could not get into the writing style so I decided to put this one down. I did not care for the plot either and will not be reading this one in the future.

Absolutely stunning work. Carnal and quite a fever dream that I just couldn't step away from. I will gladly devour anything this author puts out in the future. It's self discovery, its hating yourself, trauma that reaches into your core and literally claws its way out into the real world and manifests in tangible horrifying grotesque ways. I loved the scope of fascism, anxiety, being trans, being in love, being haunted...it's a wild ride that says SO much.

Immediately I was lost in this book. I lost notice of the passage of time, of what passed around me. Did I like it? I don't know. Did I enjoy it? Was I entertained? No, but I was compelled to read, racing through the pages, striving to understand, to relate, to empathize . Despite the politicalization, the extreme horror, the splatterpunk, the not-really-familiar setting of post-Brexit Britain and the anti-immigration sentiment prevalent among certain segments of British sociology, I could not stop. I doubt I will soon stop pondering either. My only complaint was that, as with a popular novel I read a few days ago, I found TELL ME I'M WORTHLESS just a little too long (specifically the <spoiler> alternative probability of Hannah and Jacob, near the end </spoiler>. I did find the conclusion satisfying and an effective summation of the character arcs. I guess I want to call it gratifying, in the context of the novel. Definitely my horizons have been expanded.

Now as to the House: I've read reviews [after I first read this novel] that thought the House [yes, it's purposely capitalized] was insufficiently done: insufficiently Haunted, perhaps, or not treated intensely or extensively enough. I think that, like the novel itself, there are a polarity of opinions. For myself, I really "liked" the author's treatment of the House [oh did I, though "like" should probably be substituted for by "appreciate "]. Looking back on the novel and my reactions to it, I think now the House was probably "just right."

#TransRightsReadathon March 2023

This was a very hard book for me to read. There is so much racism, homophobic, transphobic, and rape described. It was extremely difficult for me to finish. This was just not the book for me.

* Thank you for this ARC! *

Okay, it took me some time to finish this book. I think I wasn't ready to get into it at first; I had to start over, but I don't regret it.
The themes it covers are very unsettling and are not for everyone. It is a heavy read about being trans in the UK, fascism, politics, hate, racism, religious discrimination and all sorts of heavy subjects.
But it's very well written, and will certainly take you out of your horror comfort zone.

I didn't really like this one. I appreciated the graphic content warning, however, I felt this book did not need to be as graphic as it was. It felt like so much of the slurs and violence was there for the shock value's sake, and could have been toned down a lot while still getting the point across. Overall, I understand what the language and violence added to the plot, but I thought the author took it much further than necessary. I also found myself often confused about what was real versus imaginary and what time things were taking place; it felt like a lot of messy thoughts. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

This is quite possibly the biggest, heaviest hitter that I've ever read. It made me uncomfortable and unsettled in all the ways you want a horror book to, and also all the ways you never even considered. Definitely a must read if you can stomach the content.