Brainwyrms

Starred review from August 28, 2023
Rumfitt’s talent for portraying the deplorable, disgusting, and grotesque shines throughout her masterful sophomore horror outing (after 2021’s Tell Me I’m Worthless). In a too-close-for-comfort near-future U.K., protagonist Frankie is a trans woman increasingly under threat from the rise in militant transphobia, spearheaded by such figures as Jennifer Caldwell, a beloved children’s author turned unrepentant bigot. Frankie enters into a relationship with nonbinary Vanya, whose fetish for parasites leads to the crux of the story: the reveal that there are parasites—the eponymous “brainwyrms”—inhabiting the so-called “gender-critical,” proponents of anti-trans ideology. The ensuing body horror is often viscerally disgusting, including multiple lengthy sex scenes involving parasitic worms, but the gross-out factor never feels gratuitous: it’s an incendiary response to what is already an incendiary stance. Rumfitt has a point to make and she makes it with passion and nuance, without ever getting in the way of good storytelling. The characters are memorable and realistically flawed, and the horrors feel all too real. Readers will need strong stomachs to get through this, but those who do will be rewarded by the thoughtful intensity of Rumfitt’s voice.

Starred review from August 11, 2023

Visceral and at times shocking, this intimate, vulnerable triumph isn't for the squeamish, but the experience won't be regretted. In an undated future that feels closer than not, Frankie lives with the trauma inflicted upon her after the gender-identity clinic where she works was bombed by a transphobic woman. She is in a spiral of self-medication and reckless living when she meets Vanya at a fetish club. The two are quickly entangled, their relationship intensified by Frankie's deep desires and fantasies and Vanya's reckoning with a painful past and their search for identity. All the while, around them an ideological war is raging, and metaphor becomes manifest with brilliantly visceral and grotesque depiction, as thought worms and literal worms infest citizens, spreading hate, fear, and bigotry. With biting, abrasive commentary, Rumfitt's bold prose pulls no punches and refuses to relent as readers are pulled deeper into Frankie and Vanya's fears regarding safety, love, and a darkness creeping closer and closer. VERDICT Rumfitt's (Tell Me I'm Worthless) tour-de-force work of queer body horror is a must-read for fans of Gretchen Felker-Martin, Eric LaRocca, and Hailey Piper.--Emily Vinci

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 8, 2023
Rumfitt's follow-up to Tell Me I'm Worthless (2023) is positively filthy. It is also angry, hateful, sexual, heartbreaking, and searingly relatable. It is the story of Frankie, a trans woman whose place of work was bombed in an act of terrorism just before the start of the novel. Frankie deals with the trauma by pushing her friends away, drinking too much, having a lot of sex, and (barely) processing her anger over the way society treats trans people. Then comes Vanya, an impossibly young and startlingly sexual person who brings shocking sensations and emotions into Frankie's life. But Vanya has secrets, and the horror of them is about to bring Frankie to her knees. This book is a painful read, but it is also necessary when it comes to understanding the powerful undercurrents that trans people (as well as others who are marginalized) navigate in their daily lives. Hate and fear batter Frankie from all sides, and the body horror elements of the novel only serve to emphasize the issues that Rumfitt skillfully and unflinchingly addresses.

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