Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Manhunt

by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.

Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.

After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics-all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.

Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.

Reviewed by Quirky Cat on

4 of 5 stars

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Okay, there was no way that I was going to skip out on Manhunt, not after that pitch. I mean, a combination of Y: The Last Man and The Girl With All the Gifts? Yes, please! Written by Gretchen Felker-Martin, this book had big shoes to fill. Oh, did I mention that Manhunt is essentially a gender-based apocalypse story? Yeah. It's going to get intense.

Beth and Fran live a very dark but unique life. They travel what remains of the country they once knew, hunting feral men. Why? To harvest their organs and stave off the same feral fate that awaits them.

Meanwhile, Robbie has learned the hard way never to trust other people. Yet somehow, these three will end up surviving together, fending off TERFs and worse. All while trying to survive the wasteland left behind for the few survivors.

“Community is when you never let go of each other. Not even after you’re gone.”

Holy cow. There's a lot to unpack from Manhunt, and I adore that. There's so much to adore about this book, assuming you can stomach all of the gore and graphic details constantly popping up in this post-apocalyptic world.

Manhunt was marketed as a cross between Y: The Last Man and The Girl With All the Gifts. I haven't read the latter, but I can affirm the accuracy of the first comparison. Because wow. Much like Y, Manhunt does not pull punches. It tells exactly the story it wants to tell, and it doesn't much care about how you'll process it. Or how much it'll hurt your heart (or your gut – some of those graphic scenes got me hard).

I think the thing I love the most about Manhunt is this is arguably the first post-apocalyptic story I've ever seen that portrayed characters that weren't cis. The representation in this book is divine, and I love that this rep was the foundation of the story, not an afterthought. We need more books like this out in the world. I want to read them all.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Read more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 25 April, 2022: Finished reading
  • 25 April, 2022: Reviewed