Gretchen Felker-Martin

Okay so this one is going to be a short review. I felt like this book took me forever to get through. In part that's because most of it made absolutely no sense at all. I think the author should have done some time setting up what was happening in a better way. The prologue did nothing but cause me to be confused because it had nothing to do with the main characters and just seemed like a cheap way to do something "scary." The "monster" or whatever it is really doesn't ever get explained in a clear way. The book is so focused on sexual innuendos that so much else gets lost. I think the book would have worked better if we had a clear break in character's perspectives instead of trying to follow all these different characters in one chapter. The number of characters made it hard to keep track of who was who. I love that the book was so focused on a vast range of the LGBTQ+ community but honestly that is the only thing that it had going for it. In the end for me this book just felt like a terrible imitation of It. I have no intention of reading it again... mainly because I still have no idea what it was even about.… (mehr)

This horror-fantasy genre novel is a new entrant into the "scientifically impossible methods of bringing about the apocalypse/dystopia" pool. Here, a virus targets human testosterone and almost overnight turns all men into vicious large cats, complete with claws and barbed penises, which hunt down women in packs to rape and eat them.

Which is not actually the most notable thing about the novel. Our main protagonists are two trans women, Fran and Beth, who like other trans women avoid the virus by taking estrogen and using various testosterone-suppressing methods. More than feral feline men, they fear the ruling Maryland Womyn's Legion, literal feminazis out of Rush Limbaugh's wildest dreams, though called TERFs of course (also called "the same stupid white women who thought pussy hats could overthrow the government" among plenty of other insults; indeed there's a lot here for misogynistic right-wing men to like). Their shock troops, the XX (apologies to the excellent indie electronic band by that name), hunt down and execute trans women in the street when not shipping them off to labor camps, greet each other with a special fascist salute, and preach about the eternal pure Matriarchy they are building.

Reportedly the author says her novel was not written for cis people, which seems clear enough from the text as well. In that vein, there's a scene in which the killing of J.K. Rowling is gleefully recounted, which I have to say I found off-putting, not generally being supportive of fantasies of killing off one's ideological enemies, be they Rowling or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but then I'm not a member of a persecuted community which may appreciate reading a fantasy that does just that.

On the positive side Fran and Beth are complex and sympathetic characters, the plot moves quickly and the action is pretty good. It does bear a slight resemblance to [b:The Girl with All the Gifts|17235026|The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl with All the Gifts, #1)|M.R. Carey|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403033579l/17235026._SY75_.jpg|23753235] which its press compares it too, though it is less literary than that horror novel, which I'm a big fan of.

I'd give it around 2.5 stars, only having read it because of its inclusion into a literary event I always take part in, but I can easily see its intended audience appreciating it much more highly.… (mehr)