A review by akhcreates
Manhunt, by Gretchen Felker-Martin

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

After a global pandemic turns those with high testosterone levels into feral creatures, everyone else is left to fend for themselves.Beth and Fran spend their days hunting the feral men in order to harvest the parts of their bodies rich in estrogen to avoid the same fate. Robbie attracts and shoots at hordes of feral men while avoiding prior events that left him alone. Indi uses her skills as a doctor to keep all kinds of women in estrogen, assisted by Beth and Fran. This skill gets them invited into a billionaire’s bunker, which seems like a safe escape from the TERFs who are hunting and killing trans women, but may not be all that they had hoped.

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Whew. This novel is a lot to describe, not because it’s a difficult book to read but because it’s complex and layered. We get several different points of view throughout the book, including a woman rising in the ranks of the TERF army in addition to the main characters listed above. The world Felker-Martin has created is rich and detailed, and I was fascinated by the world building and engaged in the plot. Felker-Martin’s writing is quite visceral, which you’ve probably heard about if you’ve heard about this book - it’s definitely gory! However, if you, like me, are not typically interested in horror and scary books, I would say this is less horror than it is gory dystopia. 

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I appreciated that the characters in this book are incredibly messy. I frequently cringed at their decisions, and questioned why I was still rooting for one character in particular. Amongst the fantastical dystopian elements, most everyone we encounter in the book felt incredibly human, and those that were less fleshed out certainly fulfilled a specific purpose in the storytelling.

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If blood and guts are really not your thing, you should probably steer clear. But if you can push past that, I think this is a fun, fantastic, wild ride of a book and would recommend picking it up.