Book Review: Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
Genre: Gothic Horror
Age: Adult
Format: Paperback
There is a house, near a rundown, English seaside town, that feeds off hatred and misery. When Alice, Ila and Hannah entered three years ago, only Alice and Ila came back out, both convinced their version of events is the correct one. Hurt and betrayed, the two women take very different routes – Alice isolates herself, sells videos online, and goes to parties where she doesn’t always make the right choices. Ila seeks comfort in groups of women who ‘understand’ how much of a ‘threat’ trans women are. It’s Ila who convinces Alice they have to return to the house, that they have to confront what happened there and try to rescue their missing friend.
I found this one absolutely engrossing. Rumfitt grabs you right from the start, drawing you in as much as the house draws in the lost and lonely around it. This is more than a book about a haunted house – somehow, Rumfitt manages to write a deeply gothic novel that explores bigotry, fascism, Englishness and more through a decaying house and two traumatised young women. I find it really interesting how trans women portray TERFs in their writing, too. It’s clear almost instantly that the crowd Ila finds herself in isn’t one she can fully relate to, and she’s an outsider even to them, but she gravitates towards them in the way a vulnerable person gravitates towards a cult. She’s taken in, because she sees cis women as ‘safe’, and of course that isn’t true.
Alice and Ila both have their coping mechanisms, and in neither case are they healthy. They are broken and hurting and in different ways struggle to fit into a society that makes it clear it doesn’t want either of them. It makes for incredibly difficult reading at times, and that’s before we even get into the house’s POV.
It’s fair to say there are trigger warnings for pretty much everything with this book, as Rumfitt digs incredibly deep to draw out the worst of humanity in her writing. I can understand why this book is so polarising, and I can’t really dive into that without some spoilers, so spoiler warning!
SPOILERS!
By the end of the book – and what an ending! – we find out Ila is, in fact, a closeted trans man. I completely get why this would make some people uncomfortable, however the whole book is an exercise in making people uncomfortable, and I don’t think there’s a suggestion that “all TERFs = closeted trans men”. I do think the story is leading us to this idea throughout, with this one particular character, and does a very good job of showing how people are radicalised into these spaces, even while these spaces make them uncomfortable and unwelcome. Throughout, there’s an underlying desperation to belong – something the house, like fascism, feeds on, and Ila isn’t truly happy until recognising and reconciling this.
END SPOILERS
If you skipped over the last paragraph, I just want to return to one point in it: this book isn’t working unless it makes the reader uncomfortable. It’s far from feel good, it’s far from easy, and if you’re not sitting with it and thinking about it, it’s not doing what Rumfitt sets out to do. Importantly, however, it isn’t edgy for the sake of being edgy like some other horror books are. There is a point to everything in this book, whether it’s the rise of fascism (and the bigotry that comes along with it), the English identity and how it’s been coopted, or the importance of community, along with a whole lot more.
I would urge you to read this book. I think Rumfitt has captured so much of what is wrong with not just the UK right now, but the world in general, told through the eyes of the exact kinds of people most likely to be caught up in it all. Neither Alice or Ila are perfect, both are flawed and very, very human, prone to making the wrong choices, and both drawn by the house because of it. Like I said, it’s not an easy read, and it should make you uncomfortable, in the way horror can – though often fails to – do best, with purpose and intention.
Purchase at Amazon UK / Bookshop UK
Review by Elle Turpitt
Twitter: @elleturpitt
Bluesky: @elleturpitt.bsky.social
I purchased this book.
