Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt - Available

Tell Me I'm Worthless

by Alison Rumfitt
Nicky Endres
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

Alison Rumfitt's Tell Me I'm Worthless is a dark, unflinching haunted house story that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors through the lens of the modern-day trans experience.
"Nicky Endres pulls out all the stops when performing this horror story about a haunted house and the shocking trauma it inflicts on three people...This is the stuff nightmares are made of..."- AudioFile Magazine (Earphones Award Winner)
"Narrator Nicky Endres narrates three distinct POVs (Alice, Ila, and the House), and her voice easily slithers between all three, demonstrating how the house dominates this story and the women's lives." - Library Journal
"Transfeminine actor Nicky Endres' narration is chilling throughout, as they voice the perspectives of Alice, Ila, and the house at an easy, relaxed pace. Their voice maintains a lulling and melodious sing-song quality, which acts in opposition to the horrors portrayed in the book." - Booklist

"A triumph of transgressive queer horror." —Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
"Easily one of the strongest horror debuts in recent memory." —Booklist, STARRED review
Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice's life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep.
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.
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.
Cutting, 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.
"Ambitious, brutal, and brilliant." —Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 17, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781250882806
      • File size: 246226 KB
      • Duration: 08:32:58

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from October 24, 2022
      Rumfitt’s sharp and uncompromising debut explores queer identity, trauma, and the damage people cause one another amid an increasingly fascist society. Alice is a transgender camgirl in modern-day Britain whose life has grown ever more hopeless and claustrophobic after an incident at a haunted house three years before the start of the book. The horrific experience—which Alice shared with her former friends Ila, who’s since become wildly transphobic, and Hannah, who went into the house and never came out—has left Alice haunted by a pervasive, malevolent force that occasionally manifests itself as the racist lead singer of an ’80s pop band. When Ila contacts her again to suggest returning to the house and so closing the circle on their mutual trauma, Alice agrees—but will facing their fears really be enough to give the women their closure and push them toward forgiveness? Rumfitt swings for the fences with this inventive take on the haunted house novel, and she succeeds, maintaining the emotional core of the story even amid outrageous gore and graphic sexual violence. The impact of each escalating horror always lands in the reader’s heart, even if it first takes a detour through the stomach. Rumfitt has points to make but she manages to narrowly avoid didacticism, tying the many elements of this powerful horror story together in an impressive ending that offers no easy answers. The result is a triumph of transgressive queer horror.

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from March 1, 2023

      Rumfitt's debut novel is a harrowing haunted-house story that pulses with real-world terrors. Three years ago, Alice, along with her friends Ila and Hannah, explored a haunted house, which changed them forever. In the present day, Hannah is still missing, while Alice and Ila try to forget the trauma they shared. But the house is beckoning them back, and the two women are unable to resist its siren call as they rediscover horrors, both within and without, that refuse to die. Narrator Nicky Endres narrates three distinct POVs (Alice, Ila, and the House), and her voice easily slithers between all three, demonstrating how the house dominates this story and the women's lives. Rumfitt's tale uses unflinching but not gratuitous depictions of sexual assault and visceral descriptions of body horror. Rumfitt also reveals the real challenges faced by trans people in today's society, as Alice is a trans woman and Ila is markedly transphobic. VERDICT This book's haunted house doesn't stop at a few creaky floorboards, cold spots, and moans that could be dismissed as caused by the wind. Rumfitt's house forces its victims (and listeners as well) to confront the horrors just outside their windows.--James Gardner

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Nicky Endres pulls out all the stops when performing this horror story about a haunted house and the shocking trauma it inflicts on three people: trans woman Alice and her friends, Ila and Hannah. The remarkable British accent Endres assumes in their dialogue aligns with the British terms found in the text. Endres infuses insecurity and a feeling of worthlessness as Alice revisits memories, verbalizing her musings. Endres's androgynous character voicings swing widely from soft, whispery, and loving when Alice talks to Ila and Hannah to intense, growling, and threatening when the house-ghost attacks Hannah and reshapes her body into a hideous form. This is the stuff nightmares are made of, and the content warning at the beginning of the story should be heeded. S.D.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading