Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alice Rumfitt

 

What if the literal concept of bigotry became self-conscious?

TELL ME I'M WORTHLESS is probably the darkest, most disturbing book I've read in a while. It's actually probably a good thing I read it now, when I'm actually feeling pretty good, because I could see this being a two or a one-star read if I were in the wrong state of mind to read it. It is a bleak, depressing, disturbing book, filled with hateful imagery and symbolism. It is a book that takes the idea of the power of anger becoming a transcending force that permeates the physical forces of reality like a cancer or a rot, bringing with it supernatural powers that can haunt a place like a ghost. It is like The Grudge, but fueled by whole generations of fascism, discrimination, and hate.

***WARNING: OFFENSIVE DESCRIPTIONS AND SPOILERS TO FOLLOW***

There are three narrators in this book: Ila, Alice, and the House. Ila seems to be coded as a closeted transman who self-identifies with female pronouns and is an active TERF. She is also a predator, participating in the same behaviors that she uses to condemn and deligitimize trans people and their existence, despite also being marginalized herself (Jewish/Middle Eastern and, ofc, queer-coded). Alice is a transwoman who cam girls, emasculating men for money. She lives in an apartment that is haunted and believes that tendrils of The House of seeped into her very existence, hungering for her even now. She also suffers from serious gender dysphoria, and cam girling is her way of projecting this dysphoria onto a masochistic audience that craves humiliation and emasculation for sexual gratification.

And then there's The House, steeped in history. The House where three girls entered but only two left. The House has seen terrible things and reveled in them. It's almost a fairytale-like figure, except when all the paint and panels have been stripped away, you'll find visceral gore and horror. Here, haunting almost seems to represent the process of radicalization. People who come to the House might seem innocent, but they have the seeds of fascism burning inside them already: the House, with its strange powers, makes them grow. And even if they manage to escape, those seeds will still blossom.

I felt so much anxiety reading this book. It really does have TWs for literally everything, including things like antisemitism, graphic transphobia with violent language, and eugenics. Despite all that, it's a compelling story. It reminded me a lot of the countercultural, transgressive horror of the 90s, penned by authors such as Tannith Lee, Poppy Z. Brite, and Kathe Koja. In fact, I think if you enjoyed those authors, you'll probably enjoy this book. It shares a lot of the same themes as those books. I'm not sure I'd read this again and I'd be careful who I recommended it to, but the concept of imperfect and viciously flawed queer people populating a horror novel like this made me think of what chels_ebooks said in their review of GAYWYCK, "the first gay novel," about how GAYWYCK's characters weren't meant to be aspirational: instead the book aimed to just titillate gay readers with the same salacious thrills and chills as the "straight" gothic novels, just gay. I feel like in some ways, TELL ME I'M WORTHLESS does that for genderqueer individuals, too. It's messed up shock horror with queer characters who do messed up things in very messed up situations.

4 to 4.5 out of 5 stars