Manhunt

This book was so dark and wild and in-your-face that I found myself smiling in shock and delight. It's been a while since I've thought to myself "Holy crap, is this ALLOWED?" and it was very pleasant being brought back to that sense of childlike excitement at reading a story I didn't know could be published. But don't get me wrong, the book wasn't just titillation for its own sake. It has some serious heart as well, and Felker-Martin absolutely refuses to pull any punches. Overall this was just a phenomenal read, and I'm eager to read more of her work in the future.

Deliciously dark, evocative, and gory without being overkill. MANHUNT may be a dystopia but its characters are living the truth of many trans women today. Fran and Beth are easy to connect with, fully realized and complex, yet you'll root for them both even when you want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them. The world Felker-Martin has created is harsh and unforgiven and feels all too real. The author is a master at her craft.

The ending felt rushed to the point where I didn't feel I was given a proper resolution, but maybe that is the point. The pain transgender people go through extends beyond these pages after all.

Thank you to Tor and Felker-Martin for allowing me to read this book.

Holy sheeeet. This is beyond deep, dark and gruesome. The emotional Rollercoaster I just rode was killer. I was not expecting to be so drawn into this book as I was. Read this boom if you can stomach some deep shit. 5⭐

To be honest, between holiday prep at the bookstore and breaking my old phone, I only had time to read through Part 1 before my download expired. But I am obsessed with this book! Bloody, revolting, and messy, yet tender and careful, humorous and erotic, I cannot wait to buy a physical copy and finish the story. While I expect this to be a tough sell to customers because of the gore, (a mistake to read on my lunch break, in a good way!) I feel that anybody who had a passing interest about post-apocalyptic trans horror would definitely be into this. Personally I found the interpersonal drama between the protagonists a bit too frustrating in contrast with the riveting action and horror, but with only having the read the first part, I am still captivated to see how it unfolds.

Honestly, what's not to love about Manhunt?

The cover is excellent, the plot is insane and yet plausible, the trans rep is everything and the author's writing is great!

You've got two bffs who are just trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where all men are infected by a virus that turns them into wild rabid animals that just want to fight and fuck.

Beth and Fran are doing the best they can to live and hunt the feral men in order to harvest their balls for hormones. They also have to try to avoid the many hordes of TERFs(you know, those JK types who don't believe trans women are women) that roam the region and would love to kill them. An accident brings them into contact with lone wolf Robbie, who doesn't trust anyone, but falls hard for Fran and they all start traveling together. Their journey leads them to a variety of interesting places like a bunker full of wealthy"feminists" who really want to live as if nothing has changed, a military group of TERFs with some Mad Max fantasies, and a dyke compound where drama abounds, but no one cares about what's in your pants.

I laughed, I cried, I cringed. This book truly has it all! Be wary of the extreme body horror if that's not your thing, but there's plenty of sex to go along with the death and gore, so the fluid count is high.

I'm going to be recommending this one for a long time! READ THIS BOOK and get ready to get hot and bloody.

I thought I was getting a trashy escapism into the hunt of wild men. Instead I got an emotional roller coaster, an education on what it means to be trans and another reminder than at the end of the world always beware humans more than any monster.

Fran and Beth are friends and then some. They are both trans women which helped them escape the virus that turned anyone with high enough levels of testosterone into crazed beasts that only live to ravage and eat any living thing.

They work with their friend Indi, a doctor who formerly specialized in fertility treatment, to keep a supply of estrogen going for women with PCOS, menopause and those who transitioned, lest they to fall victim to the virus.

In the midst of this fight to survive they're also dealing with the threat of TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists) who see all trans women as freaks at best and at worst a danger.

Nothing about this story is black and white. The characters, the choices all of it is gray gray gray.

There will be loss, fighting against who you really are, fighting for survival, fighting for peace.

Can anyone in this world find it?

There's no polite way to put this. Manhunt fucked me up. This is a deep, dark, daring look at gender that somehow manages to be completely monstrous without ever descending into mockery. Gretchen Felker-Martin is bloody brilliant. She stunned me, amazed me, aggravated me, and excited me in equal measure. She raised me to such heights of hope and dragged me to such depths of despair that I found it hard to trust anyone or anything.

The concept of a plague that only infects those with high levels of testosterone is as brilliant as it is terrifying. It turns the infected into ravenous monsters who exist only to rape their victims and devour their corpses. Before you think this a simple man-versus-women tale, though, Manhunt explores the full depth and breadth of gender, looking at the impact of the virus on the full testosterone spectrum. Cisgender men who cannot escape their testosterone, and cisgender boys who face the threat of mandatory castration. Transmen who have to quit the hormones that fuel their transition, and transwomen who need estrogen more than ever to keep their hormones in balance. And the story doesn't stop there. It also considers the fate of cisgender women with either too much testosterone or not enough estrogen, whether they have conditions like PCOS or are menopausal.

In an apocalyptic future where so many are just one hormone imbalance away from becoming murderous monsters, you'd think (hope) we could all work together, look to preserve our friends and loved ones, but fear is a great motivator, and that's what makes the inevitable rise of militant TERFs as plausible as it is loathsome. As one character says in a moment of self-revelation, <I>"What we're doing to them . . . It's just the same shit men did to use before,"</I> and that's where the heart of the conflict lies. Ultimately, the TERFs come to reflect everything they claim to be rallying against, embracing the very same masculine cruelties and injustices that their own memories have distorted out of fear and hate. They're not just the same, I'd argue they're far worse because they use, abuse, torture, and murder transwomen with a deliberate agenda of intentional cruelty, no matter how they justify it.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Manhunt, though, is how Gretchen messes with our emotions. There are so many layers of guilty affections, traitorous feelings, and gut-wrenching betrayals that it had me spinning. It hits us with one horror after another, each worse than the first, only to slip in a lesser horror, one that we should be sickened by, but which almost sounds reasonable by comparison. A memorable example is the <I>"Cisterhood forcing little boys into their little crossdresser Hitler Youth and finding reasons to accuse each other of masculine-coded behavior."</I> When we hear the speech to the boys, when we see the propaganda, what's being demanded of them almost seems like a reasonable alternative to dying like monsters. It's only on reflection that we realize that's a really shitty choice they're being offered, and once we come to see beneath the lies and understand the truth of their fate of castrated slavery, fate, the inhumanity of it all is that much more sickening because of that moment of doubt.

It's like a novel of psychological warfare, and if it can twist our loyalties and test our sympathies, then you can understand how the TERFs can corrupt even the most decent, innocent, well-meaning of women.

At the heart of all the politics and social commentary, Manhunt is both a romance and a family drama. Fran and Beth have such a wonderful dynamic, two transwomen who are friends, partners, and (when emotions run high) guilty sort of loves. The introduction of Robbie, a transman loner/hermit, into the mix challenges their dynamic, but they ultimately become a tragic, dysfunctional family under Indi, a cisgender woman who manufacturers their hormones. There's another romance to the novel, one between a transwoman sexworker and a cisgender soldier in the TERF army, but if I start talking about that I'm going to start screaming and crying all over again.

This is a dark, violent book. It's full of rape and murder, and the quest/mission behind it all involves the harvesting (and sometimes eating) of testicles from the monstrous men. It's not for the squeamish. There's also a significant plot that centers around pregnancy, and that is full of horrors you can't begin to contemplate until you see what that pursuit can do to women. As the story proceeds, civil unrest gives way to war (and war crimes), and the body count becomes almost too much to bear.

There's not much lightness or joy to Manhunt, although there is some very dark humor, but I have to give Gretchen props for the campfire tale about the death of JK Rowling (that was a very nice touch), and a nod-and-a-wink for naming the TERF's ultimate weapon the Galbraith.

Manhunt is a brilliant piece of apocalyptic horror and social justice that's deliberately exaggerated and over-the-top. It's designed to make you think and feel, to open your eyes to the gender injustices of today, and where all those prejudices and hatreds could so easily lead. It's also a character-driven story of love and sacrifice, though, and that's what kept me reading, even through scenes that had me raging or crying. I had high hopes for this, grand expectations, and it surpassed all of them. It's brave and it's fucking brilliant.

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 transwomen and Robbie, a transman, 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 so much Tor Nightfire for being so damn awesome!
And giving me the chance to read this outstanding novel!

Felker-Martin is the real deal!
I have never read a book like this! And I need more of it!

This dark, breathtaking, stunning novel is a horrific but wonderfully written story!
An exquisite book I could not put away.
This author grabs you from the very beginning and takes us on one hell of an amazing ride.
This is probably one of the most prominent dystopian read, full of mayhem and an outstanding group of characters I've ever read about!

Manhunt... brilliant and scary at the same time, it shows some dark realities of our world that we like to think are gone but that are still lurking.
But yet its an emotional, complex story that is honestly going to stick with me for a awhile.
A new modern post-apocalyptic novel.

⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐

I want to thank again the publisher, Methane Author for the opportunity to read this ebook form!
I will post to my platforms closer to pub date!

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 despise them.

Its unapologetically queer, it's filthy, it's grotesque, and is filled with love, pain and devastation.
You won't be prepared for this book, and nothing will prepare you for the roller-coaster that is this novel.

What a wild trip this book is! Felker-Martin grabs you from the beginning with a visceral and funny and strange scene that basically sets the tone for the entire book. There's a lot of gore here (zombie kills and eating testicles are just the beginning), a lot of sex, a lot of killer interrogations of safety and identity and a furnace-blast of fury directed at the fucking TERFs who won't let people be themselves.
There are layers on layers here and it's a blast to read while you're at it. Highly recommended.

A great, precious, devastating, angry, brilliant buffet of disturbing and aching moments. I will miss reading this book. It's captivating. Gretchen's got a hold on my heart, Temple of Doom-style, and fuck, does it ever hurt. Few things have, or will—for a long time—come close to what is achieved in this novel. Every post-apocalyptic book, movie, or otherwise was just practice leading up to this. To call it monumental would be underselling it. It's a masterpiece, and no one could have done it better.

This book had a relentless hold on me for the entire time I spent reading it, from my first glance at the provocative cover to its final, riveting pages. It is grim and dark without being, well, grimdark. The world Felker-Martin builds is a bleak and cruel one, but it is fully-realized and close enough to ours to speak to us about how society treats those it deems "dangerous" to social and political order. The main characters-- Fran, Beth, and Robbie-- are complex and relatable even as they struggle with themselves, each other, and the world they are forced to live in. Think Y: The Last Man with more complex politics and much, much more body horror. Manhunt will stay with me for a long while.

An absolute blast to read, super hot, extremely gory, full of weird shit, what more could you want??

What if I was to tell you that in its deep stinking heart the book about trans women eating balls for the estrogen is ultimately a touching story about love and friendship?

I reveled in every action-packed minute of this gory, horny, reeking plague novel.

In a parallel timeline to ours, a plague has turned testosterone producers into slavering zombie-like creatures that hunger for human flesh.

Friends and sometimes lovers, Beth and Fran are manhunters who harvest these creatures to protect themselves, and others, from turning. Gruesome work on its face, but necessary for survival.

But danger isn’t solely these pus weeping goons. They also need to avoid packs of roving TERF’s who are also aiming to kill them, under the guise of protecting women.

After a brutal encounter leaves them wounded, bloody, and traumatized they team up with sharpshooter Robbie. With all of his friends dead he’s happy to join a community striving for inclusion and survival.

What follows are pages of battle and espionage. A bizarre billionaires bunker, and so many smells. Seriously. Every single smell you can imagine.

Horrifying and harrowing, this book is hard to put down. Are you planning on reading Manhunt?

Thank you to Netgalley and TorNightfire for an ARC of this title.

I can't even begin to describe how amazing this book was. I'm done with the post-apocalypse genre now because nothing can top this. The visceral language and unflinching characterization of every single character was just.....unmatched. Please read this book!!!!!

Truly excellent, top-notch horror. Gretchen Felker-Martin is a goddess of horror in the written medium.

Compelling and propulsive read that tackles the future in all its trans glory. It's graphic, intense, and glorious.

Manhunt by Gretchn Felker-Martin is powerful. So powerful. I mumbled DAMN to myself more than once under my breathe. The world building is dropped in wonderfully within the narrative, and the writing here is exquisite, the action immediate,. I'm all in. As a father of a transgender son, it smacked me in the face immediately with the troll epigraph. Fiction should be dangerous or nothing at all, and Tor is bringing us some amazing voices.

This was a wild read. From an eye opening look into the treatment and fear that trans men and women can and do live in to the “what if” story of what could happen if they were targeted in the aftermath of a virus that took out most of the world to an entertaining and very well done dystopian novel. I was alternating between feeling the agony for these women/men/people being targeted by TERFs and laughing at the camaraderie and one liners and just loving the relationships between Beth, Fran, Indi and Robbie. The story is so inclusive in showing every kind of person in it, whether they turn out to be good or evil. And while it’s ultimately a story about cismen being the enemy when the t.rex virus turns them into actual monsters, it’s also a cautionary tale to non-inclusive feminists. So while you’re completely entertained by the literal hunt of men, it’s also a little symbolic of what could happen if we don’t all get a little nicer as humans with another “men” rising up to control the rest. I don’t usually go this deep with my reviews but this one just struck me as so educational while being totally entertaining as well. I’m excited to see the movie because, well, read it and you’ll think it needs one too!

A gory, touching, and unapologetic look at survival in a hostile world. I utterly devoured this book!

Welp, that was darker than I expected 😬

What a weird, horrific, and fucking wild rollercoaster ride Manhunt was. This was not at all what I expected, and I loved every fucked up moment of it.

Manhunt starts with a great premise. A virus has infected anyone with testosterone and turns them into murderous, feral zombies. They live in the woods, run in packs, and eat anything they can get their hands on. Fran and Beth, two women who have been friends before their transition, are hunting these men to harvest their adrenal glands and testicles to continue to have the estrogen to keep from turning into one of these monsters themselves. Since all of the men were now animals, women have taken over everything. This includes the TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), who are organized and ruthlessly killing the transwomen of the world. Fran and Beth’s story starts and ends with them just trying to survive in a world where they do not feel welcomed.

It took me a while to connect with these characters. mostly because the part one is action with very little character development. Beth and Fran are thrown into the middle of a zombie and TERF attack that does not give them time to breathe. This anxiety is passed along to the reader because the danger and action is nonstop. The second part is when we really start to understand the characters. The book switches stories between Beth, Fran, Robbie, a trans man they find in the woods, and some new characters that are introduced as major secondary characters. Even though there is more character building than world building the the second part, the novel does not feel like it slows down at all. There is still plenty of action, gore, and a large amount of sex. By the time part three starts, we are fully invested in the story and the brewing fight between the TERFs, who are trying to be a new government, and the women who will do anything to fight against their anti-trans ideals. By the time the final showdown starts, with even more action than the first part, we are so attached to the story and the characters that we are totally invested. The final part is brutal, gory, and very much worth the effort it takes to get there.

I am not really the target audience for Manhunt. In fact if I was a character in the novel, I would be one of the feral men eating raw meat and killing any woman or animal that I see. This is okay. I keep thinking about how there are some horror-loving trans kids who need representation, and having two trans women and a trans man as the heroes of a story will honestly make this a LGBTQ+ horror classic. There is a movement in horror to “Make Horror Gay AF” and I fully support stories like these to show that horror is a genre that can be inclusive and for everyone. This is another reason to love Manhunt, just as much as the greatness of the story. The world Gretchen Felker-Martin builds is strong, dangerous, and very unique. I cannot wait to read what Felker-Martin has in store for us next.

I received this as an ARC from Tor Nightfire and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was SO interesting! This was horrific, stunning, and incredibly good. I wasn't expecting this book to be so tender, but at times the characters' love and friendship were so poignant that it made the horror of the novel that much more devastating. This book will stick with me for a while and will absolutely be in my top reads of 2022.

I read a lot of horror but this book surprised me in so many ways. We follow Beth and Fran and their friends and lovers while they hunt men-turned-monsters in a post virus world. The concept and execution of this world and what it means for these women was incredible.
This story was thoughtful, funny, terrifying, sad, and uplifting.
My only gripe, though small, is that the final act felt a little rushed. Regardless, I loved the story and will recommend to many. I can’t wait to see what’s next from Gretchen Felker-Martin!

Wow. This book is horrifying on so many levels and I loved every second of it even while I cringed at all the gore. It really hits you over and over. As soon as you think there is an interlude to the horror, it strikes again. Not only that, this book emotionally bulldozed me.

I really appreciated how queer and messy this book is. I don’t think I’ve read a post-apocalyptic or dystopian novel that fully actualizes the trans experience in that version of the world. There are so many terrifying parallels to modern day that make the book that much more difficult to stomach.

A part of me wants everyone to read this because it’s just that good, but I also feel like I will be scarred for life by some of the gruesome images created… so please go in with caution. This book is not for the faint of heart.

I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Manhunt is a brutally important response to books like Alderman's The Power and every fantasy series that arbitrarily genders its magic systems. It's also a beautiful evisceration of TERFs and other strains of white cis 'feminism'. Be aware you may need to take breaks reading it - basically every content warning applies here, especially body horror/gore and sexual assault. However, the topics aren't treated in an exploitative way or glorified, and at the heart of this book is a love for trans and queer people and a celebration of community and friendship. I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long time.

This book is WOW! Horrifically stunning. I have to agree with other reviewers - I feel that nothing I say can really do this book justice. It is just that good. Its been hard to find words for this book so I will keep it short and simple!

I finished this book a couple weeks ago and I am still thinking about it. I must have told everyone that I have spoken to recently about this book; it just really moved me! I cried at the end and not only because of the ending itself, but I was genuinely sad be done with it! I just didn't want it to be over!

The story was so raw, so compelling, extremely difficult to read, at times, disturbing, and so powerful! It also managed to make me feel like a prude, which I thought was impossible, but here we are, haha.
I typically do not read books with a lot of romance or explicit sexual scenes mainly because my preferred genres are horror/thriller books - but in this case, it all just worked!
Will this book be for everyone? No. But what book is?
This book IS important, though. It's uncomfortable, very graphic, and completely original. I believe that its a book that is needed and necessary in todays world. Whether the book is 'for you' or not, there is something you can (and should) take away from it.

Gretchen Felker-Martin's writing was, simply put, just amazing. I have never read anything like this and I am so grateful for it! The best book of 2022, hands down!

MANY many thanks to the Author, Macmillan Tor/Forge and Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my review. .

I laughed, I cried, I raged. I was horrified. I felt endless wells of hope and heart and humanity. The emotional impact of this will leave you vulnerable in all the best ways.

In Felker-Martin’s dystopia, a virus has taken over anyone with enough testosterone in their system to “put out a decent crop of back hair”, filling its victims full of wriggling, barbed tumors and transforming them into lizard brained zombie-like creatures hellbent on destruction. Manhunt follows a small group of survivors, with Beth and Fran leading the front. Beth and Fran are trans, and in order to keep their testosterone in check they hunt these virus ridden, feral men and harvest their organs, aka the best source of estrogen in this new, hellish world. You’d think between the feral men and organ harvesting, that would be the worst of it, but of course it isn’t. Murderous TERFS (if you aren’t familiar with the term, think radical feminists who exclude and vilify trans women, aka assholes, aka JK Rowling) are hellbent on wiping people like Beth and Fran from this bright, new, female filled earth.

I could go on and on and on here, but the most horrifying part of Manhunt isn’t even the monsters. It’s the people. The way they so easily erase, discount, and cut down others until there’s nothing left. The feral zombie men are mindless. They can’t help themselves. But the people? The seething hate, the disgust, the erasure of another’s humanity. These are the everyday horrors that terrorize Manhunt’s pages. The kind of horror only people are capable of.