It’s because you can’t have a movie/book be all disturbing content all the time. Or, if the characters were never truly “happy” (as is the case in this book), then we need to be shown a time of normalcy. There’s a reason why most horror movies start off with the happy family, people partying withe careless abandon, etc. There’s no time in the characters’ lives where things were “good” and there isn’t really any light at the end of the tunnel for them to yearn for. My main issue with this book, aside from the gratuitous and unrelenting triggers, is that there’s no “Before”. I was already numb to the disturbing content by the third chapter, and it doesn’t let up for the entire book. The author doesn’t just graze these triggers, but faces them head-on, unflinchingly and gratuitously. Ordinarily, for horror novels, I’d say trigger warnings aren’t critical (with some obvious exceptions), but with this book, you should definitely read the warning and heed it. The book opens with a trigger warning and a non-apologetic apology for including one. The plot itself is also very slow, with bucketloads of anecdotes and analogies and descriptions tossed at the reader, dragging down an already slow plot to a snail’s pace. While the haunted house itself was terrifyingly original, and I liked the parallels in the character’s lives, I thought the entire book was too heavy-handed with the off-putting content in a way that ended up being over the top and at the same time, a little boring. It does so in an obvious, in your face way, where metaphors are a thing of the past, and the author explicitly tells you what “lessons” you’re meant to walk away from the story with. Tell Me I’m Worthless is a transgressive horror novel that tackles a lot of themes. Rumfitt has a talented way of making her story leap from the page, selecting just the right words to illustrate a point, and creating a sense of madness in the reader, which she does from the very first page. I’m going to start off this review with a preface that the writing style is phenomenal. Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own.Ĭutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I’m Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that examines the devastating effects of trauma and how fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other. Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go.

She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep. Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah.

Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt